Biden returns to battleground Pennsylvania for campaign events in Philadelphia and Harrisburg
President Joe Biden listens during a campaign stop at Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ on July 7, 2024 in Philadelphia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA — President Joe Biden was in Pennsylvania on Sunday to speak at a church in Philadelphia and a campaign office near Harrisburg, with the state’s top Democrats appearing with him along the way. The trip to the key swing state comes at a time when Biden is seeking to reassure Democratic voters — and some of the party’s elected members — that he is up to the job despite a poor showing in the June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump.
Biden’s first stop on Sunday’s visit was at the Mt. Airy Church of God in Christ, a traditionally Black church in Northwest Philadelphia, where he spoke for about 10 minutes. Biden and first lady Jill Biden were originally scheduled to address the National Education Association conference in Philadelphia on Sunday, but canceled that appearance after a group of NEA workers went on strike Friday. The campaign said Biden refused to cross a picket line.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Biden told the congregation on Sunday in brief remarks, speaking in a quiet voice, without the use of a teleprompter. “Honest to God, I have never been more optimistic about America’s future, if we stick together. I really mean it.”
The president arrived in Philadelphia at about 10 a.m., according to pool reports, where he was greeted at the airport by Democratic Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman and his wife Gisele Fetterman; Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker; and U.S. Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-2nd District) and Madeleine Dean (D-4th District). The church service began at about 10:30 a.m, and Biden, Casey and Parker arrived a short time later.
After an opening song, Bishop J. Louis Felton began the service with a welcome to the president, who sat next to the church’s founder Bishop Ernest Morris, Sr. “We want you to know, President Biden, that Bishop Morris is 91 years old on his way to 92,” Felton said. “And so, Mr President, since you are only an octogenarian sitting next to a nonagenarian, don’t let anybody talk about your age. You are a young whippersnapper.”
Felton said Biden was among family, and took some not-so-subtle jabs at former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, during his remarks.
“This president doesn’t sell Bibles, he actually reads them,” Felton told the congregation.
He also defended Biden for “not being able at certain times to bring forth words,” noting that “another person lies fluently,” an apparent reference to Trump.
Sunday marked the first time Biden has returned to Pennsylvania since the debate, which he’s since admitted was a “bad episode.” Following his remarks in the church, Pamela Abrams, a Philadelphia native who has attended services at the church for 15 years, told the Capital-Star she was not concerned about Biden’s debate performance or his age.
“That was just a little freak of nature, Joe is fine,” Abrams said. “I think he has all of his faculties, he knows what he wants to do, he knows how he wants his office run and I think four more years we can give him to get it done.” She added she loved his speech at the church. “Looking forward to four more years of Joe. Go Joe, go. Run Joe, run.”
Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley criticized Biden in a statement Sunday, saying his policies had “failed Pennsylvania families.”
“It’s no wonder why Pennsylvania voters are lining up to Make America Great Again by supporting President Trump,” Whatley said.
‘Dark Brandon is coming back’
Biden took selfies with some of the congregants immediately following the service, then made an unscheduled stop at the Roxborough Democratic Coordinated Campaign office in Philadelphia, speaking briefly to a gathering of supporters and volunteers ahead of canvassing efforts.
Fetterman, Dean and Parker joined him at the campaign office, which had signs on the wall with handwritten responses to the phrase “I’m onboard because.” The answers included “Inclusion and choice matters,” “Democracy is vital to our country,” and “I care about access to reproductive health,” according to the pool report.
“This election is going to be about block and tackle, and simple basic politics,” Biden told the gathering, repeating his oft-cited pledge to build the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up,” adding he’s been saying that since he was a U.S. Senator.
He told the gathering at the campaign office in Philadelphia that beginning the night of the debate and in appearances since, he’s been “drawing big crowds.”
Biden said voters “want to know you care,” and encouraged the volunteers to keep door knocking. He also said a lot of corporate greed was contributing to the cost of groceries, adding “The wealthy are going to have to start paying their fair share.”
As he shook hands and greeted people in the audience, he approached a woman who told him, “we need Dark Brandon back,” a reference to Biden’s cooler, meme-fied alter ego.
Biden patted his jacket and said even though he didn’t have his sunglasses — a key feature of the Dark Brandon image — “Dark Brandon is coming back.”
Fetterman, wearing his usual hoodie and shorts, spoke next, saying he was “proud” to be with the president.
“I know what it’s like to have a rough debate and I’m standing here as your senator,” Fetterman said, a reference to his 2022 debate against GOP candidate Mehmet Oz. Fetterman had suffered a stroke a few months earlier and struggled during the debate with auditory processing issues.
The 2024 election was always going to be close, Fetterman added Sunday. “[But] there is only one guy that has ever beaten Trump and he is going to do it twice and put him down for good.”
Biden makes first Harrisburg visit since 2020
Biden next headed to Harrisburg, where union members, campaign staff and others began to arrive in the early afternoon at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee Union event ahead of his appearance. Sunday was Biden’s first trip to the Harrisburg area since the 2020 campaign, when he delivered a Labor Day speech at the state AFL-CIO headquarters and said he would be “the strongest labor president we’ve ever had.”
Lancaster resident Harry Davis, 82, said Sunday he had planned to spend the day canvassing for Biden, despite the high temperatures. But when he was invited by the campaign to see Biden speak, he decided not to pass on the opportunity.
Davis said that the concerns about Biden’s age and capability have made him more aware of his own age. He’s slightly older than Biden, and said he can have trouble with words himself.
“It made me really mad, people saying ‘he’s a tottering old man,’” Davis said. “I’m perfectly confident he can do it. And if he can’t, Kamala Harris — she usually gets a short shrift — but I’m confident she can do it too.”
Davis added that for him the No. 1 issue is the environment.
Janet Temin Diaz, a Lancaster City Council member and chair of the PA Dems Latino Caucus, said she has heard concerns from her constituents about Biden’s age, but believes that the threat of another Trump term makes Biden a candidate worth supporting, even if it’s more of a vote against Trump.
“They do feel a little concerned about his age,” Temin said about her constituents, particularly the Latinos she’s spoken with since the debate. “I would say there’s positives and negatives, but most of them will vote for Biden, because it’s safer because of how far right Trump is.”
She cited the American Rescue Plan funding as something her constituents have felt directly, and said she appreciates Biden’s support for unions.
“Biden is union,” Diaz said. “He’s always been with unions, where Trump wasn’t.”
State Rep. Ismail “Izzy” Smith-Wade-El (D- Lancaster) said he was pleasantly surprised by the turnout at the event so far, speaking to the Capital-Star about 45 minutes before Biden’s scheduled remarks.
“In 2020, the African-American and Latino communities of central Pennsylvania over-performed and delivered this state for Democrats, sending a Democrat to the White House,” Smith-Wade-El said. “Seeing that turnout [here], seeing Black and brown folks, seeing organized labor here, that tells me that the people who need to be brought in to win this thing are being brought in.”
Smith-Wade-El added that he hasn’t heard much concern from his community about Biden’s age.
“They’re talking to me about health care, they’re talking to me about housing, they’re talking to me about Gaza,” Smith-Wade-El said. “They’re not talking to me about Biden’s age … I think when you look at his track record vs the other guys track record, I think it becomes simple, fortunately or unfortunately.”
The Harrisburg Palestine Coalition protested the event. At around 12:30, when the protest was scheduled to start, the turnout was around 20 to 30 people, who stood beside a road leading to the AFSCME building where Biden spoke.
Biden reaffirmed his support for unions during his remarks in Harrisburg, and doubled down on a vision for his second term focused on economic support for the lower and middle classes. He spoke off the cuff, walking in front of the gathering while holding a microphone, this time wearing his signature aviator sunglasses.
“The middle class built this country and, guess what, the unions built the middle class,” Biden said to the AFSCME crowd. The president pledged to increase spending on child care and senior care if elected for a second term.
Biden also pledged further tax reform, with a focus on a tax for billionaires and corporations.
Biden was joined in Harrisburg by Dean, Fetterman and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis. All three voiced support for the embattled president, even as calls for him to step aside continued Sunday. During the Harrisburg event, Democrats sought to draw a contrast between Biden and Trump’s terms in office.
“We were all hoarding toilet paper,” Fetterman said of the end of Trump’s term, whereas under Biden, “Our economy is the envy of the world right now.”
Dean focused her remarks on the candidates’ character.
“We’ve seen them both perform as president,” Dean said. “One with utter integrity … and the other so seeded with corruption.” Dean also recalled her experience on Jan. 6, when a crowd of Trump supporters rallied by the former president broke into the Capitol as Congress was certifying the 2020 election.
“I was there on January the 6th,” Dean added. “I was taken out in a gas mask.”
After his remarks, Biden took selfies and spoke with audience members for roughly 45 minutes, even as the temperature in Harrisburg held steady in the low 90s.
Biden next headed to Denim Coffee in Harrisburg, where he was joined by Gov. Josh Shapiro, Harrisburg Mayor Wanda Williams, Fetterman and Jill Biden. The president declined whipped cream on his strawberry smoothie, according to the pool report, and left $20 in the tip jar.
Biden says he’s not dropping out
Biden’s insistence that he will remain in the race has not prevented national media and political pundits from weighing in and speculating -– sometimes flat-out stating — that he should step down as the presumptive Democratic nominee in favor of a younger candidate.
But Biden has largely dismissed those calls to drop out. “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race,” he told a capacity crowd of more than 1,000 supporters in Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday. Those calling for him to leave the race are ignoring the will of the voters who voted for him in primaries across the country, he added. “I’m not going to let one 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work.”
Most of Pennsylvania’s top elected Democrats have thus far expressed support for the president remaining in the race.
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Shapiro — whose name comes up frequently in speculation about who would replace Biden on the ticket — went on cable news shows the morning after the debate and said Democrats should “stop worrying and start working,” while acknowledging Biden’s debate performance was bad. Fetterman said Friday on MSNBC that Democrats calling for Biden to drop out were betraying the president. “I am not the sum total of a bad debate and certainly the president isn’t either,” he said.
But U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-12th District) said on a satellite radio show July 3 that Biden would need to show “that he’s up for the task,” if he decided to stay in the race, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris should be the Democratic nominee if Biden steps aside.
The campaign said the weekend swing through the “blue wall states” — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — is part of a July outreach blitz that includes a $50 million media campaign. It also will include an “aggressive” travel schedule which will see the Bidens, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff travel to every battleground state. Its organizing program aims to knock on more than 3 million doors throughout July and August, the campaign said.
Trump will visit Pennsylvania next weekend, with a rally in Butler County, north of Pittsburgh, days before the opening of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Neither candidate has spent much time in the western half of the state so far this campaign cycle.
With a few exceptions, Trump’s debate performance has not drawn the same level of scrutiny as Biden’s, but a fact-check by CNN found the presumptive GOP nominee made more than 30 false claims during the debate, many of which had already been debunked.
Biden last visited Pennsylvania in May, when he and Harris launched the campaign’s Black Voters for Biden-Harris initiative in Philadelphia.
Trump campaigned in Philadelphia in June, speaking on Temple University’s campus, where he appeared on stage for the first time in 2024 with GOP U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick. And Trump last visited Harrisburg in February, speaking at a National Rifle Association event where he promised the audience “no one will lay a finger on your firearms.”
Biden beat Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020 by just over 80,000 votes.
Updated with a full write-through at 5:25 p.m. July 7, 2024.
Correction: This article was updated July 9, 2024 to correct a caption that misidentified a person in a photo with President Biden in Harrisburg.
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