Democrats in Pennsylvania Urge Biden to Branch Out Beyond Philadelphia
President Biden loves Philadelphia. And he loves campaigning there, too.
No part of the country has seen more visits from Mr. Biden so far this year, or throughout his presidency. Four years ago, the city — and its increasingly Democratic suburbs — cast one-third of the total votes in Pennsylvania, the nation’s most populous battleground state. Winning the region by large margins is essential for Mr. Biden’s hopes in November.
On Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris will stop in Philadelphia to promote the Biden administration’s efforts to forgive student debt, her third trip there since last summer.
Now, some Democrats are saying that it is time for Mr. Biden and his campaign to widen their reach across the Keystone State, which he narrowly won by about 80,000 votes last time around.
“Biden tiptoed in the right direction in 2020,” said former U.S. Representative Conor Lamb, a moderate Democrat who won a Pittsburgh-area district in 2018 that Donald J. Trump had carried by double digits. “And I think he needs to go much further this time.”
Mr. Biden won in 2020 not just because of Philadelphia. He also drove turnout in Pittsburgh, lifted his margins in smaller cities and flipped back swing counties that Barack Obama won in 2012 but that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. And he prevented Mr. Trump from running up the score in the conservative, rural areas that span much of the state, partly with old-fashioned efforts like a whistle-stop Amtrak tour of western Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden will need to reunite that multiracial coalition of voters — which polling shows is in danger of fracturing — in 2024.
Mr. Lamb acknowledged that all candidates have time constraints, especially the president of the United States. But he urged Mr. Biden to spend more time in the state’s rural and rust-belt communities, which are predominantly home to white working-class voters but also have pockets of African American voters in former mill towns.