The president and the first lady arrived in Delaware shortly before polls closed to cast their votes in Tuesday’s primary election.
-
Send any friend a story
As a subscriber, you have “>10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Give this article
President Biden after voting on Tuesday. The trip had not been on his publicly released schedule.
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday evening, President Biden voted. The process involved a hasty announcement to the press, multiple motorcades and a jet flight.
In a last-minute move that demonstrated how the presidency complicates even the most mundane of tasks, Mr. Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, flew home from the White House to Wilmington, Del., arriving at the polls less than an hour before they closed at 8 p.m. for the state’s primary contests. About an hour after arriving, they climbed back aboard Air Force One to jet back to Washington.
The trip had not been on the president’s publicly released schedule. But the pilgrimage back to his home state to cast a vote is a familiar one for sitting presidents, and typically affords an opportunity to connect with voters.
Former President Barack Obama traveled to Illinois to vote in the 2014 midterm races while helping campaign for Gov. Pat Quinn. Mr. Biden also voted early from Wilmington during the 2020 presidential election, while his rival, former President Donald J. Trump, cast an early vote from West Palm Beach, Fla.
Mr. Biden also returned to his birthplace, Scranton, Pa., on the day of the 2020 election. He addressed his supporters and signed “from this house to the White House with the grace of God” on the living room wall of his childhood home.
But Mr. Biden’s whirlwind trip on Tuesday — he was scheduled to arrive back at the White House by 9 p.m. — left little chance to do anything but travel to and from the polling place, in a performing arts center at a school, answer a few questions from reporters and make a quick stop at his Wilmington residence.
The one contested primary for a statewide office in Delaware on Tuesday is for state auditor — a race in which Kathleen K. McGuiness, the incumbent, is facing a challenge by Lydia York, a lawyer.
In July, a jury found Ms. McGuiness guilty of misdemeanors stemming from her hiring her daughter and awarding a contract to a consulting firm that had also worked on one of her previous campaigns. But she was allowed to remain on the ballot after the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that misdemeanors do not disqualify candidates from holding office in the state.
Source: nytimes.com
