President Biden will continue his efforts to salvage his threatened re-election battle on Sunday with two campaign visits to Pennsylvania, a key swing state.
Biden will visit Philadelphia and then Harrisburg as more Democrats from across the party’s ideological spectrum call on him to withdraw from the race over concerns about his age and mental acuity.
Pennsylvania is one of the states Mr. Biden must win almost certainly if he hopes to retain the White House. And its largest city, Philadelphia, is one of his favorite places to campaign. But former President Donald J. Trump has a lead in the state in many polls.
Mr Biden won Pennsylvania in 2020, but Mr Trump now holds a lead of about three percentage points over the president, according to a poll average from FiveThirtyEightCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of Biden’s top surrogates, campaigned for the president on Friday and Saturday in Western Pennsylvania and Bucks County, a hotly contested battleground.
Mr. Biden was scheduled to speak at a National Education Association meeting in Philadelphia on Sunday, but he pulled out after the powerful education union’s staff went on strike. He will instead speak at a church service in Northwest Philadelphia on Sunday morning.
“President Biden is a staunch supporter of unions and he will not cross a picket line,” Lauren Hitt, a Biden campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement.
After Philadelphia, Mr. Biden will travel to Harrisburg on Sunday afternoon for a community organizing event with union members. His campaign said he would be joined throughout the day by Gov. Josh Shapiro and Pennsylvania’s two senators, Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both Democrats.
Since a poor debate performance that left him frequently lost track, Biden has largely stuck to delivering prepared speeches via teleprompter. Without the device, he sometimes struggles to speak clearly.
This week, he stumbled over his words during two radio interviews, even though his assistants had provided the hosts with the questions, a practice that violates standard journalistic ethics. And he gave several confusing answers during an interview with ABC News on Friday.
Even Biden’s allies have said his campaign should make him appear in public more often without an autocue, to demonstrate his mental acuity.
“They don’t need scripted remarks,” said Steve Sisolak, the former Democratic governor of Nevada, who is supporting Mr. Biden. “He needs to show people he can get on the ground and answer questions — tough questions — and be out there with voters. Be out there, be with your people.”
Despite misgivings from many Democrats, Mr. Biden has stubbornly insisted he will stay in the race. On Friday, the president told ABC News that only the “Lord Almighty” could force him to drop out.
