The president’s campaign has featured initiatives aimed at young people, union workers and environmentalists, but it is not clear that they will be sufficient to rekindle support in those groups.
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President Biden on Wednesday with members of the United Steelworkers in Pittsburgh, where he called for a tripling of tariffs on steel imported from China, a position cheered by union workers at U.S. companies.
Last Monday, it was forgiving student loans. This week, it was calling for tariffs on Chinese steel. Soon, President Biden is expected to protect federal land in the Alaskan wilderness.
As his re-election campaign heats up, Mr. Biden is leaning heavily on the powers of the presidency to try to shore up his support among key constituencies — young people, union workers and environmentalists — many of whom have expressed disappointment in his handling of the issues they care about.
It is a tactic often employed by previous sitting presidents, but one that is made more urgent for Mr. Biden by polls that show lagging support among several of the groups that helped him win the White House four years ago. Campaign aides say the rapid-fire string of announcements, which will continue, demonstrate that the president hears their concerns.
It is also part of the campaign’s broader strategy of trying to boil down the choice for voters to a simple one of governing versus chaos. The announcements by Mr. Biden are meant to draw a contrast with former President Donald J. Trump, who has spent most of this week sitting at the defendant’s table during the first of his four criminal trials.
“You’ve got a president who’s bringing people together to get things done, like relieve student loan debt, protect American manufacturing, lead on the world stage, while Donald Trump screams into an echo chamber of MAGA extremism on Truth Social,” said Michael Tyler, the communications director for Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign.
ImageMr. Biden and his aides have been traveling to highlight his administration’s accomplishments.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times
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Source: nytimes.com
