HARRISBURG, PENN. — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will travel to his childhood home state of Pennsylvania on Labor Day to speak with union workers as the presidential campaign heads into the crucial home stretch.
The trip kicks off a flurry of travel to battleground states by Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, as well as their opponents, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, amid protests over racial injustice and police brutality and the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden will mark the Labor Day holiday by meeting with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, the leader of the largest federation of U.S. labor unions, at the group’s Pennsylvania headquarters, and taking questions from “rank and file union members across the country,” according to the event website.
Speaking exclusively to local Pennsylvania station Fox 43, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO President Rick Bloomingdale said that Trump’s National Labor Relations Board “takes away labor rights at every chance they get.”
“His board has made ruling after ruling to discourage organizing and allowing for workers to have their voice on the job,” Bloomingdale added.
The AFL-CIO endorsed Biden in May.
“This year, the choice is pretty clear as to who is for workers and who isn’t, who’s for the millionaires and billionaires and who’s for the working class and the middle class,” Bloomingdale said. “Clearly, Joe Biden.”
Voters in Pennsylvania can start receiving mail-in ballots as soon as mid-September; a recent roundup of polling averages from Real Clear Politics shows the former vice president leading in the Keystone State, but polls have tightened in recent weeks.
Both candidates are shining a spotlight on Pennsylvania. Trump narrowly beat Hillary Clinton by 44,292 votes in Pennsylvania in 2016, which helped carry him to victory. Before 2016, Pennsylvania voted for Democrats in 6 consecutive presidential contests, starting with Bill Clinton in 1992.
According to details shared first with The Associated Press, the Biden campaign will announce three union endorsements: the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Elevator Constructors and the National Federation of Federal Employees, collectively representing hundreds of thousands of union workers nationwide who can be mobilized to support the campaign. The Biden campaign believes its labor support could help get out the vote in states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
The U.S. economy has been steadily rebounding from its epic collapse in the spring as many businesses have reopened and rehired some laid-off employees. Yet the recovery is far from complete. Only about half the 22 million jobs that vanished in the pandemic have been recovered.
Economic inequalities also appear to have widened, with lower-income and minority workers suffering disproportionately while affluent Americans have lost fewer jobs and even benefited from rising stock and home prices.
Biden and Trump are both set to visit the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11 to mark the 19th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
