©Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden speaks to reporters upon his return to Washington, at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, U.S., March 11, 2024, REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to the battleground state of Wisconsin on Wednesday after clinching the Democratic Party’s nomination, where he will focus on securing the votes of suburban women, black voters and Latinos throughout the Midwest.
Biden’s campaign released a new video titled “Let’s Go” after Georgia voters helped the 81-year-old incumbent secure the last of the 1,968 delegates needed for the nomination, setting up what would have been the first US presidential rematch in nearly 70 years.
Biden has escalated his attacks in recent weeks against former President Donald Trump, 77, and what he called Trump’s “campaign of resentment, revenge and punishment that threatens the very idea of America.”
In Milwaukee, Biden will again tout his administration’s economic policies — though that strategy has so far failed to persuade many likely voters — and open local campaign headquarters before moving to Michigan on Thursday.
The White House said Biden will announce $3.3 billion in projects in 40 states to reconnect communities divided by highways decades ago, using funding from both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act.
That includes $36 million for a project along Milwaukee’s 6th Street to widen sidewalks, add safe bike lanes and bus lanes and install green infrastructure to keep wastewater from flowing into the Milwaukee River, he said.
His visit is part of a monthlong “I’m on board” blitz by top administration officials aimed at rallying supporters in each of the seven battleground states that could decide the 2024 election. Last week, Biden already state in Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Hampshire.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who campaigned in Colorado on Tuesday, visited Wisconsin last week to trumpet the White House’s economic policies and talk about apprenticeship programs and “good-paying union jobs.”
“Now the general election truly begins, and the contrast couldn’t be clearer,” Harris said in a statement Tuesday.
Wisconsin is a politically important state that Biden’s team wants to win in November to reach the 270 state electoral votes needed to be re-elected. Biden won a state of nearly six million people in 2020 with less than 1% of the vote; in 2016, Wisconsin supported Republican candidate Trump.
Organizers say they expect hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators to protest Biden’s visit to Milwaukee for his response to Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people.
According to Palestinian authorities, more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed as a result of Israel’s military response, and the war has angered some of Biden’s core voters, including young people and left-wing progressives.