President Biden will open a three-day tour of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state, on Tuesday with a speech focused on taxes and aimed at comparing his policies to those of former President Donald J. Trump.
In Scranton, his hometown, Mr. Biden is expected to speak about the tax code in the context of economic justice, arguing that Mr. Trump’s tax cuts benefited billionaires while his own agenda has helped working and middle-class families.
The president “will lay out how Trump’s tax plan is a handout to the rich and holds the middle class in the palm of his hand,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said during a call with reporters. “The address will make clear a simple question: Do you believe the tax code should work for rich people and for corporations or for the middle class?”
All of this is standard fare in an election year. But the backdrop to Mr Biden’s campaign shift couldn’t be more unusual. In an unprecedented trial, Mr. Trump will spend most of this week and much of the next month or two in a Manhattan courtroom facing criminal charges. Democrats hope the contrast between Mr. Biden’s campaign and the discharge of presidential duties while Mr. Trump’s lawyers maintain his innocence will illustrate the choice facing voters in November.
And Mr. Biden must also grapple with the fallout from Iran’s weekend attack on Israel, which raised new fears of a larger regional war in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, the day after Tax Day, Mr. Biden is likely to announce his plans for changes to the tax code, including expanding the child tax credit, creating a tax credit for first-time home buyers and giving permanent tax credits to those who do one Get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
During the campaign, he often asks his audience: “Does anyone think the tax code is fair?”
Pennsylvania is a key target for both the Biden and Trump campaigns. The easiest path for Mr. Biden to re-election is for him to win Pennsylvania as well as Michigan and Wisconsin, the so-called blue wall states. In 2020, he narrowly defeated Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania by around 80,000 votes. Polls show another close race is likely in the state, the country’s most populous battleground.
Mr. Trump held a large rally in eastern Pennsylvania on Saturday. Both he and Mr. Biden, who spent much of his childhood in Scranton, have sought to emphasize their ties to the state. “I went to school here, right?” Mr. Trump, a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, reminded his audience. “I went to school in Pennsylvania. I love Pennsylvania.”
While Mr. Biden’s campaign has invested heavily in opening offices and hiring staff across the state, Pennsylvania Democrats have urged him to expand his travel beyond Philadelphia, a key hub of Democratic votes whose visit is also logistically convenient for him is. They say it is imperative that Mr. Biden campaign in western Pennsylvania as well as swing areas like Erie County, which Mr. Biden abandoned in 2020.
This week, Mr. Biden is doing just that. After leaving Scranton, he will visit Pittsburgh on Wednesday to give an official address at the headquarters of the United Steelworkers. Unions are a key constituency for Democrats, and Mr. Biden has signaled his opposition to a Japanese company’s attempt to take over U.S. Steel, a move also opposed by the steelworkers union that has backed him.
He will campaign in Philadelphia on Thursday.
Although the economy will be a focus for Mr. Biden during his trip, Democrats are also trying to keep the issue of abortion front and center by directly tying Mr. Trump to bans on the procedure in many states, most recently Arizona.
Ahead of Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania over the weekend, the Democratic National Committee unveiled billboards in the eastern part of the state.
“Because of Trump, over 20 states have extreme abortion bans,” posters said in English and Spanish. “If he gets his way, Pennsylvania could be next.”
Abortion is legal in the state up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions after that, and with a Democratic governor in office, restrictions seem highly unlikely. Democrats have argued that Mr. Trump would sign a federal abortion ban if re-elected. Mr. Trump said last week that he would not do so, reversing a position he held during his White House tenure.
Michael Gold contributed reporting from Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.
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2024-04-16 09:03:20
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