The 2024 campaign for President Joe Biden ended as it began in a room full of union members. But this time he was not a candidate, but a surrogate.
Instead of drawing the national spotlight, as he did at a union convention in Washington, D.C., the day he announced his bid for re-election in April 2023, his speech at a carpenters’ union hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Saturday was overshadowed by the duel. Rallies for Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Rather than a triumphant and defiant defense of his record and a promise to “get the job done,” Biden’s words were sentimental and subdued, so much so that the audience at times felt compelled to take over the commanding general.
“I’m nothing special,” Biden said, prompting someone in the audience to reply, “Yeah, you are, Joe.” “Thanks, Joe!” songs.
Administration officials are looking ahead to the end of the campaign, which they believe will provide Biden with more freedom to move forward with his remaining weeks in office, according to multiple sources familiar with West Wing dynamics. Officials will no longer have to coordinate all, or at least most, of their activities with Harris’ official and campaign teams.
Even Biden sometimes double-checks with top aides about upcoming events and asks, “Did we have the vice president run this?” according to a senior official.
When Biden ended his candidacy in July, he told his staff that he wanted the remaining months of his presidency to be as productive as previous similar periods. Plans were drawn up for events and initiatives that advisers felt would help both shape his legacy and boost Harris’ candidacy.
But the public campaigning role that Biden envisioned when he promised to be the Harris-Walz campaign’s “best volunteer” has been limited to a few targeted trips to key states to target working-class and union voters as a couple. He held labor-focused events in Philadelphia and Scranton over the weekend.
White House officials have worked to speed up the implementation of Biden’s domestic legislative achievements, while his national security team has had more time to work directly with him on foreign policy priorities, including the Middle East, a major campaign distraction.
Advisers are working on what Biden’s final weeks and hours will look like.
A senior administration official said there is some early talk about what will happen after Biden leaves office, including a twist on the traditional final ride on Air Force One for the outgoing president. Amtrak said a new fleet of high-speed Acela trains could be on the tracks by the end of the year, offering a symbolic departure from Washington for the man whose career began with daily train trips from Delaware as a senator and even served occasionally as vice president. the president, the official said.
He was having a hard time being Biden left out of the national conversation and generating headlines late for Trump’s “shutdown” and off-script comments about the purge after calling Trump supporters “trash.”
He also reiterates his common courtesy to Trump. At a final stop in New Hampshire, Biden shared what his worried allies had to say during his recent visit to Germany. “One after another they’ll quietly pull me aside and say, ‘Joe, he can’t win.’ “My democracy is in danger,” he said.
At the same event, he expressed some optimism about the results of the election.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you’re going to do in this election,” he said, adding, “As a friend of mine said, from my lips to God’s ear.”
Although Biden played the limited role of the deceased, first lady Jill Biden was quietly among the campaign’s busiest surrogates. Since early October, he has run more than two dozen campaigns in all seven battleground states, including three stops in southeastern Pennsylvania on Sunday.
“I know you can feel it, the excitement of people getting ready to elect a new generation of leaders,” he said.
She hailed Harris as a “resolute, strong leader” who inherited the “power to make a difference” from her mother. But he argued that other surrogates were largely left out, at one point asking the audience, “Are we better off today than we were four years ago?”
“Yes,” he said, rebutting a central argument of the Trump campaign. “In Donald Trump’s America, our country is closed due to the pandemic. … Schools were closed and at every turn Donald Trump created more chaos.”
Jill Biden continued to North Carolina on Monday, while her husband returned to the White House, where he will remain through Election Day.
On the last day of the campaign, Harris’ first stop was in Scranton, where he did not mention Trump once for the second day in a row.
He didn’t mention Biden either.