During what was likely his final campaign stop as president in his childhood hometown of Scranton, President Joe Biden on Saturday fiercely defended his record working on behalf of unions and touted Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy to be his successor. He spoke at a union hall with union workers, a deeply friendly audience for the president, who was the first to walk a picket line. At one point during his remarks, he offhandedly said “I’m nothing special,” to immediate pushback from attendees. They applauded and chanted, “Thank you, Joe!”
But he also waxed nostalgic about his late son Beau, his time in the U.S. Senate and introduced his granddaughter Natalie, Beau’s daughter, who had asked to tag along on the trip to Scranton. He described himself as “the oldest S.O.B. to hold this job,” and repeated his optimistic stump speech: “There’s nothing we can’t do if we do it together” in his 20-minute address to Carpenters Local Union 445.
Joe and Jill Biden have been part of the Democratic political establishment for decades, and both have roots in Pennsylvania, the state that will likely determine the outcome of Tuesday’s election. Former President Barack Obama once said without Scranton there would be no Joe Biden, and his hometown welcomed him warmly on Saturday as it usually does, even as he prepares to take a step back from the political arena. Jill Biden, an educator who champions teachers and students, has been a staunch supporter of her husband, even as some in Washington and on the campaign trail have quietly backed away from him since he bowed out of his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris.
The two returned to their childhood Pennsylvania hometowns this weekend, to stump for Harris for a final time in the commonwealth that shaped them.
“We’ve made a lot of progress, and Kamala will build on that progress,” President Biden said Saturday. “You know, we’ve asked a lot of each other, you and I, unions and me, I ask for one more thing.”
“I’m asking for your support for Kamala and for Tim Walz, I’m not just asking for me,” he added. “I’m gonna be gone. I’m asking you to do something for yourself and the families, for the people you grew up with, the neighbors you come from. That’s what the hell we’re about.”
On Sunday, first lady Jill Biden visited a church in Spring House Montgomery County, about 20 minutes away from where she grew up, and attended a union meeting in King of Prussia.
Joe Biden in Scranton
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski (D-Luzerne) attended Biden’s visit to Scranton on Saturday.
“We have tremendous respect for him. He’s one of us,” Pashinski told the Capital-Star. Biden’s decision to not seek reelection “was a very courageous act. He did it for the good of America and for the good of the people of America,” he added.
Lackawanna County Commissioner Matt McGloin was one of the elected officials who welcomed Biden as he arrived in Scranton on Saturday.
McGloin mentioned that Biden was someone that you grew up watching in that region and said it “was a little devastating” when he announced that he was dropping out of the race, but lauded the decision as “selfless.”
“You don’t do that unless you absolutely 100% believe in that individual,” McGloin told the Capital-Star. “That’s why he chose [Harris]. That’s why he stepped aside for her to be able to continue on his legacy, to carry on his work.”
Biden, who lived in Scranton until he was 10 years old, has made his roots in Northeast Pennsylvania a key part of his identity. In addition to his granddaughter, Natalie, some of his relatives on the Finnegan side of the family were present at Saturday’s event, as well.
“Scranton becomes part of your heart, crawls into your heart, and it’s real,” Biden said. “It’s not hyperbole. It’s not a joke. It’s real.”
Jill Biden talks about journey of faith
First Lady Jill Biden spent her time at home in Montgomery County talking about healing — healing souls, healing the economy, and healing America.
She started her day at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Spring House. The church had celebrated its 136th anniversary the week before, and the congregation was excited to welcome Biden to mark the start of its 137th year.
We are better off because of the service of President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden
– Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
Gov. Josh Shapiro, an honorary member of the church, introduced the First Lady to the congregation.
Shapiro talked about how William Penn founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on principles of religious tolerance and personal freedom.
Over the last four years, Shapiro said, America has become a place that is “warm and welcoming for all.”
And that is because “we’ve had two leaders grounded in those Pennsylvania principles — one in Scranton, the other a daughter of Willow Grove — who have lived amongst us and who have brought those Pennsylvania values across this country,” he said.
“They rescued our nation from COVID. They got us back up on our feet. They put people to work. More people went to work in America today than at any other time in our nation’s history thanks to the Biden-Harris administration. They went to disaster sites and hugged our fellow Americans. They celebrated with us, brought joy to the communities, mourned with us if we lost someone. They have been the best of us.
“We are better off because of the service of President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden,” Shapiro said, earning a standing ovation from the congregation.
When Biden, in a cobalt blue dress and jacket, took the pulpit, she told the congregation about her faith journey.
She said her parents were “avowed atheists” and she chose a church as a teenager because she felt a need for faith in her life.
Biden said her faith was always important to her, but it was shaken in 2015 when her son Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer. She choked up as she talked about watching Beau go through treatments and operations.
“Despite what the doctors said, I believed that he would live,” she said. “In those final days, I made one last desperate prayer. It went unanswered. After Beau died, I felt betrayed by my faith, broken. My pastor wrote me emails inviting me back to church. But I couldn’t go. I couldn’t even pray. I wondered if I would ever feel joy again.”
Four years later, when she and Joe Biden visited a church, a parishioner asked to be her prayer partner.
“Now, I don’t know if she had sensed how moved I was by the service, I don’t know if she could see the grief that still hides behind my smile, but I do know that her kindness opened up something inside of me,” she said.
“In that moment, I felt for the first time that there was a path to recovering my faith. In the depths of our brokenness, we can start to believe that healing ourselves will never be possible. And the truth is, we’re right. We cannot heal ourselves alone. But with God, all things are possible. And there is power in this community.”
Biden told the congregation that the smallest actions can make the biggest difference in another person’s life.
“One word can let someone know that they are not alone. One prayer, or yes, a prayer partner, can reconnect us to the divine. One phone call can change a heart and light the way in darkness,” she said. “One vote can win an election. And one election can set a new course.”
She continued, her voice rising, “Will you be that person? Will you act now? Will you speak up and use your voice and decide our future? Will you vote?”
She urged the congregation to make a plan to vote and follow through on it on Election Day, and then she left to talk to another kind of congregation.
The Bidens and unions
Pashinski, who held multiple union positions before he was elected to the legislature, described unions as a “strong basis of the United States of America” and highlighted their importance to Northeastern Pennsylvania, dating back to the dominant era of the coal industry.
“This is a perfect example of what Northeastern PA is and how America has become the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, because it’s given everybody a chance for that education and their freedom,” he said.
Tom Flynn, General Vice President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters said Saturday that elections have consequences “We have the ability to continue to build on the foundation that President Biden has established,” he said.
A vast majority of unions have endorsed Harris, although it doesn’t necessarily mean that rank and file members are all backing her candidacy. The International Association of Fire Fighters and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced they would not be endorsing a candidate in the 2024 race, after they backed Biden’s candidacy in the previous presidential election.
“I thought they should have endorsed, but I’m a dedicated union guy,” Rich Guman, a retired union Teamster who lives in Lackawanna County and attended Biden’s speech, told the Capital-Star. However, when asked if he was concerned about Harris potentially not being able to garner the same level of support from union members, he said “not at all.”
Guman thought it was a “wonderful idea” to have Biden campaign for Harris in Scranton just a few days until the election, saying Biden and Harris are “both great people.”
Following his address at the carpenters hall, Biden made one more appearance at the AFSCME labor hall in Scranton, according to pool reports, and then headed back to Delaware.
After she left the church in Spring Garden on Sunday, Jill Biden stopped by a meeting of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 542 at the Alloy Hotel in King of Prussia.
The Bidens love the unions — Jill Biden mentioned that she is a card-carrying member of one — and this union definitely loved her back. The members gave her a standing ovation when she entered and punctuated her remarks with an “amen” here and a “yes” there.
There, Jill Biden spoke briefly, but more directly endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
She talked about healing the country.
“Are we better off today than we were four years ago? Yes,” she said.
She talked about COVID, the shutdown, and the way the economy turned in 2020. And, she said, “at every turn, Donald Trump created even more chaos.”
Biden promised the union members that Harris “is going to make life easier for people all across the country, not just some.”
She said Harris will strengthen Social Security and Medicare.
“But she’s going to need great partners in the U.S. Senate,” Biden said. “That’s why you have to re-elect Sen. Bob Casey.”
And just as in the church, Biden urged the union members to get out and vote.
“We have to meet this moment as if democracy were on the line,” she said. “Because it is.”
Joe Biden’s legacy
As of Sunday, President Biden was not scheduled to make any additional campaign stops.
Biden has largely been absent from the campaign trail over the past few months, although he has made multiple appearances in Pennsylvania. One of those recent trips was for a fundraiser last month for Casey in Montgomery County. The political landscape in Northeast Pennsylvania has shifted over the course of Biden’s five decades in politics.
In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter won Lackawanna County by 14 points, and he lost Montgomery County by 15 points. When Biden was the candidate at the top of the ticket in 2020, he won Montgomery County by 26 points and only won his home county of Lackawanna by 8 points.
Casey, also a son of Scranton and longtime ally of Biden’s, told reporters on Sunday at a campaign event in Montgomery County that Biden would be an effective messenger for Harris in Scranton.
“I mean, he’s got not only deep roots there, but he’s been part of the effort, as I have, to deliver for communities all across our state,” Casey said. “We have never seen, in the entire history of the state, and I know state history pretty well.”
“He really does,” Shapiro interjected. Shapiro had just joined Casey after the church service with Jill Biden.
“We have never seen record investment in infrastructure like we’ve seen because of the work that this administration did working with folks like me to deliver,” Casey continued. “Roads and bridges and water systems, sewer systems, high-speed internet, in the smallest towns in most rural communities all the way to our big cities and everywhere in between. So, the more we can talk about those examples of delivering, I think the better off we’re going to do on Election Day.”
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