Biden Targets Wealthy in Pennsylvania Tour with a Hometown Visit

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to begin a three-day visit to Pennsylvania, the biggest battleground of the 2024 elections.

The trip will begin on Tuesday from Scranton, Biden’s hometown, followed by Pittsburgh on Wednesday and Philadelphia on Thursday.

While the former president Donald Trump is having his hands full with courtroom hearings in New York, Biden aims to strengthen his appeal to working-class voters by pummeling tax policies made by his Republican rival, Donald Trump.

In 2017, Trump declared tax cuts for various corporations and wealthier Americans while calling for the rich to pay “their fair share.” Biden, in his speech at his hometown Scranton, will renew calls to increase taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.

In his State of the Union address last month, Biden raised a proposal to increase the corporate tax cut rate from 21% to 28%. Before Trump and congressional Republicans passed this in 2017, the rate was set at 35%.

Pennsylvania proves to be a prize in the 2024 elections, which are essentially a rematch between Biden and Trump.

With 19 electoral votes, Pennsylvania has one of the highest counts among the 50 states. The swing state of voters between Democratic and Republican makes winning Pennsylvania valuable in the elections.

In the 2020 elections, Biden won Pennsylvania by less than 1.5%, roughly 80,000 votes. In the election before that, Trump beat Hilary Clinton here by less than 45,000 votes.

“You got Joe Biden, a candidate who sees the world from the kitchen table where he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Donald Trump, who sees the world from his country club down at Mar-a-Lago,” said Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director.

Despite job growth, healthy spending, and a better-than-expected GDP increase, Biden is dealing with voters’ concerns. He is being blamed for increasing the costs of various items like groceries, construction materials, and interest rates.

The latest Reuters/IPSOS polls suggest voters trust Trump more than Biden to better manage the economy and jobs by a 39% to 33% margin.

Biden is counting on his economic populist platform, featuring a new tax on billionaires and closing corporate tax loopholes, to energize voters in a blue-collar area of Pennsylvania—a region traditionally dominated by Democrats until Trump’s rise. Scranton, located in Lackawanna County, is generally whiter, poorer, and has lower education levels compared to the rest of the state, according to recent U.S. Census data.

His campaign aides say Biden needs to win back white, non-college-educated voters in Pennsylvania and other industrial battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin to secure his stay in the White House.

Former President Barack Obama secured Lackawanna County with about 62% of the vote in 2008 and 2012, whereas Hillary Clinton narrowly won with 49.8%.

Biden captured the county with 53%. The Republican and Democratic primary elections in the state are scheduled for April 23.

Biden also faces unorganized criticism, saying that he has not done enough to stop the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, which is ridden with diseases and famine amidst the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Amber Viola, a 38-year-old from Scranton who hosts a well-known local political podcast, declined an invitation from the Biden campaign to attend a Scranton event.

“I don’t feel right posing for campaign photos while people are dying,” Viola stated.

In other key battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, voters have organized opposition in Democratic primaries to voice their discontent. Recently, Biden has encountered protests at several public appearances.