PHILADELPHIA (AP) – President Joe Biden disguised himself Saturday as the most pro-worker president ever, basking in the applause of exuberant union members at the first major political event of his re-election campaign, already who said his economic agenda is boosting the middle class. .
He highlighted the broad climate, tax and health package signed last year that has reduced the cost of prescription drugs and lowered insurance premiums, pocketbook problems that are part of his administration’s focus on his achievements during his first two years in office, and the central argument for a second term.
“I’m looking forward to this campaign,” the Democrat said. “We have a record to run.”
His election of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and a friendly union hearing, reflected his crucial role in his re-election effort. The city was the site of his 2020 campaign headquarters, and the state was one of the few that had voted for Republican Donald Trump in 2016 but swung back to Democrats four years later.
So far, the main activity of the Biden campaign has been fundraising, as the campaign tries to build up an impressive fundraising haul before the second quarter of the year ends at the end of the month. The president raised money at a private home in Greenwich, Conn., on Friday and will soon hold fundraisers in California, Maryland, Illinois and New York.
More than 1,000 union workers wearing colorful T-shirts with their organization’s logos began chanting “Let’s go, Joe!” and “We want Joe” and whistling hours before Biden arrived. Union members representing professions ranging from carpenters to airport service workers to entertainers and heavy-duty equipment engineers praised Biden, some speaking in Spanish with translators.
The event, which organizers said included unions representing 18 million workers nationwide, recalled then-candidate Biden opening his 2020 presidential campaign at a union hall in Pittsburgh, and Biden likes say that no president before him has been so pro-union. He told reporters before leaving Washington that he had met with business leaders on Friday and that business interests and “unions are starting to work together.”
“I’m excited that this is the start of something big,” Biden said, “and we’re going to start changing the economic balance.”
Several of the nation’s most powerful unions, including the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, officially endorsed Biden’s campaign on Friday. The first joint endorsement by unions and the backdrop of hundreds of workers are part of a carefully choreographed effort to show the support of workers behind what Biden himself calls the most pro-union president in history.
The unions’ endorsements followed Wednesday’s joint endorsement by major environmental groups, ongoing support designed, a campaign official said, to demonstrate that addressing climate change through green jobs does not threaten workers’ rights. workers.
The Philadelphia event also comes amid some encouraging economic news for Biden, with inflation cooling last month, continuing a steady decline in consumer prices driven mostly by lower gas prices, a smaller increase of grocery costs than in previous months and less expensive furniture and air fares. and household appliances.
Before addressing the union meeting, Biden took a helicopter tour of the collapsed section of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia that has snarled traffic along one of the nation’s busiest highways.
Michael Smith, a 62-year-old retired electrician attending Saturday’s rally who is a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said he likes Biden’s chances of re-election next year because of his defense of the positions of green work and construction throughout the country by his administration. the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Biden signed in 2021.
“You can see how important it is with the 95 down,” Smith said of the legislation, adding “This is a big factor in creating jobs and jobs. Not just for unions, but for the class average”.
Another union member in attendance, Jennifer McKinnon, 53, an elementary school librarian and member of the National Education Association, said she felt Biden had a personal commitment to education because his wife, Jill, was a teacher who continued to teach. English at a community college in northern Virginia as first lady.
“I am very optimistic. I’m afraid the Republicans are going to get stuck in their cycle that they did last time and people aren’t going to buy it this time, so Joe’s going to jump in,” McKinnon said of the 2024 election, alluding to to Donald Trump., who is the early favorite for the Republican presidential nomination.
Many in the crowd also said they thought criminal cases in federal and New York courts against Trump could complicate his election case, even though his message of economic populism has resonated with some union members in the past. AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the 2020 electorate, found that about 6 in 10 self-identified union members supported Biden, a margin that exceeded Trump but did not dominate.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said part of the reason the AFT and other major unions endorsed Biden nearly 18 months before Election Day 2024 was to promote Biden’s economic record against the cultural problems defenders of Republicans.
Clark Hamilton, a 63-year-old retired electrician, said Biden represents union values, but noted that the president also sometimes “plays it like most politicians, in the middle.” He referenced Biden urging Congress to help prevent a rail strike last year, which the president said could cripple commerce across the country.
“It’s a shame,” Hamilton said. “But he was trying to save the economy.”
Still, Hamilton said he’s confident Biden’s record will guarantee him a clean second term “especially if it’s against Trump.”
