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Trump on Saturday will headline a rally at Temple University in deep blue Philadelphia.
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The former president hopes to make inroads Bidenblack voter base.
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Trump focused his campaign message on the economy. But Biden maintains deep ties to the city.
For former President Donald Trump, few states anchor his potential path back to the White House more than Pennsylvania.
The former president lost the Keystone State to Biden by 1% in the 2020 election, after narrowly winning the state over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.
And a big part of the reason Biden won in 2020 was his strong margins in the Philadelphia area — the city and its wealthy suburbs — that offset the substantial advantage Trump enjoyed.
But Biden has struggled over the past year to revive the liberal-leaning coalition that sent him to the White House four years ago. Support among black and Hispanic voters is particularly unstable.
It’s part of the reason Trump will speak at Temple University on Saturday in Philadelphia. He hopes to attract voters who may not have considered him in the past and who may be up for grabs in November. He will also be joined by the Pennsylvania Republican Party’s Senate candidate David McCormickwho will face veteran Democratic Senator Bob Casey Jr.
Here’s a look at how Trump is trying to win over these voters and the profound challenges he faces in doing so.
It’s all about economics…
Pennsylvania unemployment rate it has stood at 3.4% for eight consecutive months in May 2024, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
This is below the current US unemployment rate of 4%.
But, like most national polls, Trump leads Biden on the question of which candidate would best handle the situation. the economy. In the most recent New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College survey held in late April and early May, Trump had a 12-point lead over Biden on the issue among registered voters. And just 21% of respondents said the U.S. economy was “good” or “excellent,” while 78% described it as “fair” or “poor.”
Trump believes many Democratic-leaning voters, who rank inflation and high housing costs as major concerns, could give him a lift in Philadelphia — a city where voters cast 81% of their votes for Biden in 2020.
In 2020, Biden won Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes out of more than 6.9 million votes cast. And more than 604,000 votes cast for Biden came from Philadelphia voters. Therefore, any small movement toward Trump, especially among Biden’s black support base in the city, could have dramatic implications for the results at the state level.
…but Biden’s ties to Philadelphia run deep
There may be no city outside of Delaware that Biden enjoys visiting more than Philadelphia.
He paid close attention to the City of Brotherly Love – paying particular attention to its black voters and union workers – before and during his presidency. As a U.S. senator from Delaware and a resident of Wilmington, he was just a few miles from Pennsylvania’s largest city.
Therefore, he has a natural relationship with many elected Democrats and union leaders. He can easily find himself among receptive audiences at the city’s numerous black churches, where a loyal base of older black voters overwhelmingly supports his bid for a second term.
Biden has stumbled with younger black voters on issues such as the conflict in Gaza and student loan debt relief. And many young voters are largely unaware of her work on climate issues. But it would take a huge electoral shift — which can often take several cycles to come to fruition — for Biden to seriously risk losing a large portion of his base in Philadelphia.
Until now, many downvote Democratic Senate candidates like Casey are outperforming their Republican opponents in critical races across the country. It’s something the Trump campaign is certainly realizing as he tries to flip Pennsylvania.
Right now, the state race is incredibly close. And Philadelphia is poised to once again have a say in the outcome.
Read the original article at Business Insider
