Biden will set the rising stakes of 2024 in his beloved, divided Pennsylvania

President Biden returns to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Friday to try to define the 2024 presidential election as an urgent and increasingly intense battle for American democracy.

Biden is expected to use a location near the famed Valley Forge Revolutionary War camp and the approaching anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot to frame the preservation of democracy as a fundamental issue for the 2024 campaign, according to a senior Biden aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the comments.

The speech, which builds on previous speeches about protecting American institutions and combating political violence, represents the bet that many Americans remain shaken by the Jan. 6 attack and Donald J. Trump’s role in it.

Lean on a phrase used by America’s first presidentGeorge Washington, around the time he commanded the troops at Valley Forge, is expected to suggest to Mr Biden that the 2024 election is a test of whether democracy is still a ‘sacred cause’ in the country , the assistant said.

Mr. Biden likes to use sites of historical significance to highlight speeches that he and his team consider key moments. He traveled to Independence Hall in Philadelphia before the midterm elections and to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the 2020 presidential campaign.

His campaign sees the events of Jan. 6 — when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in a violent culmination of his election denialism — as crucial to understanding how the 2024 campaign will unfold. His team notes that Mr. Trump and Republicans have tried to rewrite the history of that day, but says the images of the Capitol riot are still in voters’ minds.

But now that Mr. Biden is heading back to Pennsylvania — the state of his birth, part of his political identity and the surprisingly frequent background of his public appearances — there are signs he needs to strengthen the coalition that elevated him in 2020 and rejected Mr. Trump.

Early polling shows weakness among key constituencies, including nonwhite and younger voters, and many Americans are concerned about his age. New York Times/Siena College polls from the fall showed the 81-year-old Biden trailing Trump, the 77-year-old frontrunner for the Republican nomination, in five of six major battleground states, including Pennsylvania.

The Biden campaign said the crowd Friday would include young people motivated to get involved in politics by the events of Jan. 6, as well as some elected officials directly affected by election denial. According to his campaign, the visit will be Mr. Biden’s 31st to Pennsylvania since taking office.

Trump, who faces significant legal jeopardy including two trials this month, will campaign on Friday in Iowa, where the first Republican nominating contest will take place on January 15.

“The Democrats are confident in what President Biden, Vice President Harris, has done over the last four years,” said Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. “We are also nervous and really want to get started. We all know this is going to be an exciting race, an exciting campaign and we can’t leave anything to chance.”

Some Democrats worry that the Biden campaign has been slow to build in their states, or slow to articulate a vision for a second term.

Mr. Biden’s team argues there is plenty of time to engage voters, many of whom are not yet focused on an election 10 months away.

“We look forward to scaling up our efforts across the board to mobilize our coalition, including talking to them about how a second Biden-Harris term will bring important issues to them at the right time to maximize the impact to maximize,” said Kevin Munoz, a Biden member. campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

Mr. Biden’s team framed Friday’s speech as an opening salvo for the 2024 contest and a moment to underscore the stakes. The campaign, which says it is stepping up its organizing efforts, also released its campaign first television advertisement of the year, aimed at preserving democracy and combating political violence and extremism.

“We are all being asked now: What are we going to do to preserve our democracy?” Mr. Biden says on the spot. ‘History is watching. The world is watching.”

And while warning of political extremism and violence, he is expected to appear Monday at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., where a white supremacist murdered nine parishioners in 2015.

Mr. Biden clearly feels special affection for both states. Black voters in South Carolina revived his near-dying 2020 presidential bid and propelled him to the Democratic nomination.

And he won Pennsylvania that fall — and reversed it after Mr. Trump won the first Republican presidential candidate to carry the state over nearly three decades – in part by tapping into his roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“Mr. Biden is showing that he is a regular guy,” said George C. Brown, the mayor of nearby Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and a Biden supporter. “People can identify with him.”

Mr. Biden has returned to the state — and the Philadelphia region in particular — again and again for major speeches, including one on threats to democracy before the 2022 midterm elections.

Asked about Mr. Biden’s focus on the issue, Mr. Davis, the lieutenant governor, emphasized the need for a forward-looking message.

“It will be an important factor in this cycle, but I also think it will have to be accompanied by a clear vision of how we are going to improve the lives of working families,” he said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s going to have the same impact as it did four years ago, given where we are today, but I think it’s certainly part of the message that the president should be delivering, in addition to what his vision stands for. there will be a second term.”