Biden, Trump and Obama converge on battleground state of Pennsylvania for critical last push in Senate race
- Hotly contested election to replace retiring Senator Pat Toomey, is one of a handful of close races across the US, crucial to securing a majority
- 2022 midterm election cycle has been marked, in part, by how closely candidates associate themselves with Biden and Trump
President Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Donald Trump all converged on Pennsylvania in a last-ditch effort to close the deal on the midterm elections in a state that’s a critical step on the path to the White House in 2024.
Obama campaigned in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning with John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate, before a separate afternoon event in Philadelphia that Biden will attend.
In the evening, Trump, who succeeded Obama and preceded Biden, rallied to promote Mehmet Oz, the Republican Senate candidate, in Latrobe, some 45 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
Trump told thousands of cheering supporters that the United States was “a country in decline.”
Trump’s hoping a strong Republican Party showing on Tuesday will generate momentum for the 2024 run that he is expected to launch in the days or weeks after polls close.
Over and over on Saturday, Trump falsely claimed he lost the 2020 election only because Democrats cheated, while raising the possibility of election fraud this coming week. In part, because of such rhetoric, federal intelligence agencies have warned of the possibility of political violence from far-right extremists in the coming days.
“Everybody, I promise you, in the very next – very, very, very short period of time, you’re going to be happy,” Trump said of another White House bid. “But first we have to win an historic victory for Republicans on November 8.”
The hotly contested election to replace retiring Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, is one of a handful of close-call races across the country, crucial to securing a Senate majority.
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Former US president Donald Trump hints at 2024 race for a second term
Fetterman and Oz are neck-and-neck in the closing days of the campaign, with polls showing the television doctor-turned-Senate-hopeful clawing back from a double-digit deficit as recently as August.
Nationwide, Republicans, including Oz, have shown signs of momentum as voter concerns about high inflation, the unstable economy and crime, overwhelm angst over the US Supreme Court’s June ruling that rolled back federal abortion rights.
Hours before his planned appearance alongside Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Biden was admonished Saturday by West Virginia Senetor Joe Manchin for comments the president made in California about shutting down coal plants.
Neighbouring West Virginia is the country’s second biggest coal-producing state, while Pennsylvania is the third-largest.
Obama cast Tuesday’s election as a choice between Republicans who deny election results and complain about problems without real solutions and Democrats who will fight to make democracy work.
“Pennsylvania, you’ve got choice between politicians who seem willing to say and do anything to get power, and people who see you and know you and care about you and share your values, who want to make your life better,” Obama said at the rally with Fetterman.
He mocked Oz peddling products on his former long-running Dr Oz Show, saying, “If somebody is willing to peddle snake oil to make a buck, then he is probably willing to sell snake oil to get elected. You deserve better.”
Fetterman said while Oz will be standing on the stage with Trump, he was proud to be standing with a president who is “100 per cent sedition-free” – a reference to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election that he falsely says was stolen.
In his closing appearances, Oz is focusing on what he says is Democrats taking the country in the wrong direction on the economy and inflation, crime, and a porous southern US border allowing the proliferation of illegal drugs such as fentanyl.
“Right now in America, we need to bring a sense of balance to Washington”, Oz said at a rally on Friday night in Wexford near Pittsburgh. “Washington’s getting it wrong with all these radical ideas”, he said.
Democratic and Republican political strategists alike said the rallies are unlikely to sway many voters this close to the November 8 election, but they can help energise base voters to cast ballots and volunteer to help their party’s nominee.
The 2022 midterm election cycle has been marked, in part, by how closely candidates associate themselves with Biden and Trump.
Polls show that Trump is unpopular with suburban women Oz needs to win statewide, and Republicans have tried to tie Fetterman to Biden because the president has only a 42 per cent approval rating in the state.
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor, is also expected to appear at the Trump rally, and Fetterman has sought to link Oz with Mastriano, characterising them as extremists.
“The thing about Pennsylvania, it’s such a close state that small things can have big impacts”, Democratic strategist Mike Mikus said. “Say it costs you 5,000, 10,000 votes. Well, in a state like Pennsylvania, that can be the difference in the race”.
On Thursday, Fetterman received an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey. It was a particularly devastating blow to Oz, who got his start on television with regular appearances on her talk show, before starting his eponymous Dr Oz Show that ran for nearly 13 years.
Trump, who is teasing he’ll announce a third White House bid, possibly the week after the election, is also staging rallies on behalf of his endorsed candidates before Tuesday’s elections in Florida and Ohio. He appeared on Thursday in Iowa.
The ex-president typically mentions the candidates briefly and has them speak, but he spends the bulk of his speech talking about himself, criticising Biden and Democrats and winking at a possible 2024 comeback campaign.
Biden has appeared at fundraisers but has held fewer rallies than Trump or Obama during the midterm elections when they were in office.
Obama, who remains popular in the Democratic Party, has been appearing at rallies for Democratic candidates in states including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, excoriating republican candidates as unqualified and extremists.
Pittsburgh, where he and Fetterman appeared on Saturday morning, is in Allegheny County, a Democratic island bounded by Republican counties on all sides, including Westmoreland County, where Trump and Oz will appear on Saturday evening. In 2020, Biden won Allegheny County by 20 percentage points. Trump carried Westmoreland by 28.
Philadelphia, where Biden, Obama and Fetterman will rally together in the afternoon, is Pennsylvania’s most populous city and a Democratic bastion. Fetterman needs to run up votes there to counter any high turnout that Oz gets from the commonwealth’s rural Republican strongholds.
But Obama’s big rally for Hillary Clinton in Philadelphia in 2016 didn’t help her defeat Trump in Pennsylvania, said Josh Novotney, a Pennsylvania-based republican consultant who has worked for Toomey. Neither should Democrats count on Oz appearing with Trump having an affect on the celebrity doctor, he said.
“If they’re banking on that, I’d say ‘good luck,’” Novotney said. “I don’t think really either way it’s going to hurt or help.”
