2020 Race: Joe Biden to start campaigning in person
Joe Biden will leave his basement to counter a resurgent Donald Trump who has narrowed the gap in battleground states.
Joe Biden will begin on-the-ground campaigning to counter a resurgent Donald Trump who has narrowed the gap in the battleground states amid ongoing violence and civil unrest in US cities.
The move comes amid concerns among Democrat strategists that the president is benefiting from his strong law and order pitch at the Republican National Convention and at a time of ongoing protests and violence in Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha in Wisconsin.
A man wearing a hat with the insignia of the pro-Trump group Patriot Prayer was shot dead in Portland amid clashes between Trump supporters and anti-Trump protesters.
The killing comes amid ongoing tensions in Kenosha after two people were killed in street violence last week following the police shooting of African America Jacob Blake.
Mr Trump tweeted a video of a long line of Trump supporters in their trucks heading into Portland, calling them ‘GREAT PATRIOTS’ and saying he could order the National Guard into the city and “solve these problems in less than 1 hour.”
“People of Portland and other Democrat run cities are disgusted with Schumer, Pelosi and their local ‘leaders.’ They want Law and Order!,” he tweeted.
GREAT PATRIOTS! https://t.co/BWGxVoBTmI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2020
The fresh violence in Portland coincides with Mr Trump’s strong emphasis on law and order in his acceptance speech at the White House last week, raising concerns among Democrat strategists that his message might damage the Biden campaign.
After having run a virtual campaign so far, the Biden campaign says the 77-year-old former vice president will now begin in-person campaigning in the battleground states.
Mr Biden has avoided in-person campaigning so far because of the threat posed by the coronavirus and concern that speaking to crowds will send the wrong message about the need for social distancing.
But the political value of having a live audience when campaigning was illustrated by the atmosphere generated by the speeches of Mr Trump and also Vice President Mike Pence at the RNC last week.
Mr Biden’s move comes as initial polls suggest that Mr Trump has benefited more than Mr Biden after the Democrats and Republicans held their conventions in successive weeks.
A Morning Consult Poll found that Mr Trump has cut Mr Biden’s lead from 10 points to six points with Mr Biden leading the president by 50 per cent to 44 per cent after the RNC compared to 52 per cent 42 per cent before it began.
The RealClear Politics average of polls also shows Mr Biden’s national lead shrinking slightly from 7.5 points to 6.9 points.
However Mr Biden’s lead in the key swing states has narrowed by more with Mr Biden now only 2.6 points ahead in Michigan, 3.5 points in Wisconsin, 3.7 points in Florida and 4.7 points in Pennsylvania.
More polls in the coming week will give a clearer picture of the size of any post-convention bounce to the candidates.
Mr Trump will visit Kenosha on Wednesday (AEDT) in a move which local Democrat authorities said would only increase tensions in the city.
“They centred an entire convention around creating more animosity and creating more division around what’s going on in Kenosha,” Wisconsin Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes said, referring to last week’s RNC.
“So I don’t know how, given any of the previous statements that the president made, that he intends to come here to be helpful, and we absolutely don’t need that right now,” he said.
At the RNC, Mr Trump warned that Americans would not feel safe in Mr Biden’s America because he would not stand up to violent protesters.
“Make no mistake, if you give power to Joe Biden, the radical left will defund police departments all across America,” Mr Trump said. “They will make every city look like Democrat-run Portland, Oregon. No one will be safe in Biden’s America,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Biden has denied that he would defund the police and has condemned violent protests.
He said on Monday (AEST) the deadly violence in Portland was “unacceptable.”
“Shooting on the streets of a great American city is unacceptable. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right and I challenge Donald Trump to do the same.”
Mr Biden said the US must not become a country at war with itself or “a country that accepts the killing of fellow Americans who do not agree with you.”
“But that is the America that President Trump wants us to be, the America he believes we are.”
A wave of protests that began across the US with the police killing of George Floyd in late May has continued in several cities, especially in Portland which has experienced often violent clashes between protesters and police for months.
Democrats argue that Mr Trump’s warnings about safety under a Biden presidency ignores the fact that the current violence is occurring under Mr Trump’s watch as president.
“The chaos and the disorder and the lawlessness that we are currently seeing, that’s Donald Trump’s America,” Democrat Congresswoman Val Demings said.
However White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said it was wrong to “reframe it that way.”
“You know, you want to talk about Donald Trump’s America, most of Donald Trump’s America is peaceful,” he said
(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)
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