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PHILADELPHIA (MarketWatch) – Former Vice President Joe Biden sought to promote himself as a uniter of the country in a wide-ranging speech here on Saturday, even as he launched a blistering attack on President Donald Trump.
Speaking at an outdoor rally just steps from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Biden said “politics is pulling us apart. It’s ripping this country apart at the seams. Our politicians, our politics today, traffics in division, and our president is the divider in chief.”
Biden said America is at its best when acting as “one America,” and drew on his years of working with Democrats and Republicans alike as a senator and as Barack Obama’s vice president. “I can do that again, with your help,” he told a cheering crowd.
But even as Biden said, “Let’s stop fighting and start fixing,” he harked back to his experience with Obama and said it was the former president who passed on a good economy to Trump. That economy, Biden said, “was given to him, just like he’s inherited everything else in his life.”
The rally was Biden’s second appearance in less than a month in the state where he was raised and that shares a border with Delaware, which Biden represented in the U.S. Senate for 36 years. It’s a sign of the investment the former vice president is making in the Keystone State, expected to play a major role in the 2020 decision, as it did in 2016.
Scranton, Pa.-born Biden is handily leading the wide field of Democratic contenders in national polls, and earlier this week topped Trump by 11 points in Pennsylvania in a Quinnipiac University survey of the state’s voters. Biden has chosen Philadelphia for his national campaign headquarters.
Now see: As Biden commands lead in polls, these are the Democrats who are running for president.
Biden spoke of the need for what he called a clean-energy revolution without costing job growth, promoted free community college and said the U.S. needs an economy “that rewards work, not just wealth.” He has in the past said Trump’s tax cuts should be rolled back to help pay for some of his proposals.
Trump has homed in on Biden as a competitor, noting Pennsylvania’s record-low unemployment and charging that China would rather negotiate with the former vice president “or one of the very weak Democrats” who hope to win the presidency. Trump is planning a “Make America Great Again” rally in Montoursville, Pa., on Monday night.
State Republicans are aggressively targeting Biden as well.
“While Joe Biden has emerged as the front runner in a crowded field of 2020 Democrat presidential contenders, the more he continues to re-introduce himself to the American public— and Pennsylvania in particular — the more they will see he offers nothing for them but a record dearth of any meaningful success and no real vision for the future,” said Republican Party of Pennsylvania Chairman Val DiGiorgio in a statement.
Trump’s trade war, meanwhile, may make him vulnerable with some Pennsylvanians. While Trump has said tariffs have helped the state, not all agree. Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania has argued Americans pay a price for tariffs and has co-sponsored a bill to rein in Trump’s tariff powers.
“I will definitely vote against Trump,” says Bill Skalish, president of Landenberg, Pa.-based Granite Tech, Inc., a seven-person firm that imports cut-to-fit, prefabricated countertops from China.
When accounting for tariffs on imported Chinese materials and tariffs related to an anti-dumping ruling involving Minnesota-based quartz company Cambria, Skalish estimates his company will be asked to shell out about $2 million.
“We’re a small company. It’s devastating,” Skalish, a registered Republican, told MarketWatch in a phone interview before the rally. Cambria CEO Marty Davis has called Trump’s trade policy “100% correct,” charging that China has tried to “hijack” American prosperity with cheap materials.
Also read: Why the U.S.-China trade deficit is so huge: Here’s all the stuff America imports.
Attendees said Saturday they support Biden’s idea of rolling back Trump’s tax cuts, that they liked his vows to combat climate change and promote clean energy, and appreciate his support for unions.
Read: Bernie Sanders unveils plan to overhaul public education that pulls away from new charter schools
“He’s a union man. We’re a union family,” said Deirdre Dignetti, a medical assistant from Northeast Philadelphia. “The Trump tax cuts — that’s ridiculous,” said her husband Dave. “That’s gotta get reversed.”
Outside, holding a Trump banner, Valerie Biancaniello of Broomall, Pa., said she didn’t believe polls and didn’t understand “how anyone can not be for Trump.” She credited him with helping Pennsylvania’s jobless rate hit a low of 3.9% in March and said, “I want to make sure that socialism doesn’t take over our government.”
J. Wesley Leckrone, an associate professor at Widener University in Chester, Pa., says Biden has a “real shot” at winning Pennsylvania in the general election if he is the Democrats’ nominee.
“Democrats are very energized against the president and are going to show up no matter what,” says Leckrone, who notes Democrats outnumber Republicans in Pennsylvania by about 800,000. Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania in 2016, making him the first Republican to win that state since 1988.
Pennsylvania’s voters have plenty of time to make up their minds. The Democratic primary is scheduled for April 28 of next year.
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