Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden desperately tried to salvage the loss of another solid blue state while campaigning Friday in Duluth, Minnesota.
Biden met with passers by in the city’s downtown area, drawing a crowd of around 200.
It was the largest in-person crowd Biden has had since the pandemic exploded in March.
But Democrats warn that he still may have his work cut out for him.
Duluth Mayor Emily Larson said the Trump campaign has far outpaced Biden in local yard signs—an indication of strong enthusiasm in the state’s North Country.
“One of the things the Trump campaign has been very good about is visibility in Duluth, but also in areas around Duluth,” Larson said.
The city, birthplace of singer Bob Dylan, overlooks Lake Superior near the Wisconsin border.
Once a bustling industrial port, it has developed something of a boutique chic but still maintains the vestiges of its working-class routes.
Biden railed against Trump’s inability to control the pandemic, casting the president’s reluctance to embrace more serious social distancing safeguards as “negligence and selfishness” that cost American lives.
At a carpenter union’s training hall, he also emphasized his plans to boost American manufacturing.
“It’s time to reward hard work in America and not wealth,” Biden declared with roughly a dozen workers looking on.
“When the government spends taxpayers’ money, we should spend that money to buy American products made by American workers and American supply chains to generate American growth,” Biden said.
He promised to invest $400 billion in federal money over his first term to ensure more products are made in America.
After Biden’s speech, his motorcade rolled into downtown Duluth, where he stepped out onto a brick plaza in front of Little Angie’s Cantina and Grill and began to elbow bump and chat with passersby.
One man yelled from a deck above the plaza, “Go home, Joe!”
Two women closer to Biden responded, “You are home, Joe.”
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
