PHILADELPHIA — Three presidents swept through Pennsylvania on Saturday, aiming to rally their supporters in the closing stretch before Tuesday’s election and signaling the national weight of the state’s races for governor, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House.
In rallies that drew thousands and spanned from Pittsburgh to Westmoreland County and Philadelphia, President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and former President Donald Trump aimed to juice turnout in their party strongholds, days before elections with sweeping consequences.
The course of the Senate and laws across Pennsylvania hinge on Tuesday’s results.
Republicans in Latrobe called for voters to rebuke Biden and fellow Democrats over crime, inflation, and energy policy, and they vowed to end “woke” thinking in schools, including around transgender rights.
“Your commonwealth is being totally destroyed, our country is being destroyed,” Trump said. “Biden and the far-left lunatics are waging war on Pennsylvania energy, crushing Pennsylvania jobs, gutting Pennsylvania communities, and strangling Pennsylvania families with soaring prices like you’ve never seen before.”
Biden, Obama, and the top Democrats on the ballot in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, touted accomplishments from the Biden administration and warned that Republicans are aiming to drastically curtail abortion rights and rights to same-sex marriage, while opposing tougher gun laws and a higher minimum wage.
More drastically, they pointed to the threats of a GOP still dominated by Trump, and denial of the lawful results of the 2020 election.
“Democracy is literally on the ballot, and this is a defining moment of the nation,” Biden said before thousands at the Liacouras Center at Temple University.
Obama laid out the risks of losing “true democracy.”
“When true democracy goes away, people get hurt,” he said. “This is not an abstraction.”
He warned the crowd in the deep-blue city that Democratic turnout too often recedes in midterm elections, costing the party the chance to take action on gun laws, climate change, and other party priorities.
Obama’s events with Senate candidate John Fetterman in Pittsburgh, and then Fetterman, Biden, and gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro in Philadelphia, brought one of the party’s most popular figures to cities where turnout, particularly among Black voters, is vital to Democratic hopes.
In a sign of the intensity of the moment, huge lines formed outside the events in Westmoreland and Philadelphia.
The Pennsylvania governor’s race between Democrat Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano could determine the future of abortion rights and voting laws in the country’s fifth most populous state — and determine if Mastriano, an avid election denier, appoints the secretary of state who oversees the state’s elections in 2024, when it could again be a pivotal presidential battleground.
The Senate race, a toss-up in its final days, could decide control of the chamber, and with it, significant influence over legislation and Biden appointments, including if any openings arise on the Supreme Court. That contest has gained even more importance as recent trends have made Republicans heavy favorites to win the U.S. House, leaving the Senate as Democrats’ last hope for retaining a foothold in Congress.
The events Saturday also foreshadow the likelihood of another Trump run for president, and a potential rematch with Biden, in 2024. Trump is reportedly considering launching his third run for the White House as soon as this month.
House races in northeastern Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, and Pittsburgh and its suburbs are also going down to the wire, and could decide control of the chamber, or the margins.
Obama, in Philadelphia, asked who would fight for ordinary people, and who would stoke fear. He jabbed the Republican Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, over the miracle pills the celebrity surgeon promoted as a daytime TV host.
“If somebody who knows better is willing to sell snake oil just to make money, then he’s going to be willing to do anything or say anything to get elected,” Obama said.
Biden recited a list of his administration’s accomplishments, including a historic infrastructure investment, a jobs boom, a $35 cap on Medicare insulin prices, and a bipartisan gun-safety law. Among the loudest cheers came for his sweeping student-debt reduction.
“Elect John Fetterman to the Senate, please,” he said.
In a split-screen moment, Shapiro, Fetterman, Mastriano, and Oz gave overlapping speeches, the Democrats in Philadelphia and Republicans in Latrobe.
Fetterman said the Democratic rally was “100% sedition-free,” and acknowledged his recovery from a stroke.
He pledged to be “the 51st vote” for ending the filibuster, raising the minimum wage, supporting the pro-union PRO Act, and codifying the right to abortion that until recently was guaranteed under Roe v. Wade.
Shapiro accused Republicans of touting a fake version of “freedom.”
“It’s not freedom to tell women what they’re allowed to do with their bodies. It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read,” Shapiro said to roars. “It sure as hell isn’t freedom to say you can go vote, but he gets to pick the winner. ... We’re for real freedom.”
In Latrobe, the line for Trump’s rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport stretched for a quarter-mile.
Hundreds of pro-Trump flags snapped in unison in 17-mph winds under an ominous cloud-filled sky. AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” blasted on the speakers.
A recording of Trump’s booming voice echoed over the grounds, telling the arriving crowd that the United States is a “nation in decline.”
When Mastriano spoke, wearing a Phillies hat in Western Pennsylvania, a double rainbow formed over the crowd.
“We claim that in Jesus’ name,” he said, speaking a couple of hours before Trump was scheduled to appear.
Mastriano accused Shapiro of failing to fight crime as attorney general.
“I don’t know why he’s not defending the people of Philadelphia,” Mastriano said, “Especially suffering are Latino Americans, African Americans, and he’s turned his back on them.”
But throughout his speech he returned to issues around transgender people, repeatedly bringing up rules around bathrooms and sports.
(The contrast on education was stark: Shapiro called for increased funding for schools, more vocational-tech classes, and increased mental health counseling for students.)
Shapiro “thinks he’s a champion of women’s rights,” Mastriano said. “Can he even define what a woman is?”
Oz spoke briefly, hammering Democrats over crime and inflation, while casting Fetterman as an extremist.
“We can fix this. But John Fetterman can’t,” Oz said. “I’m not a politician, I’m a surgeon. And what surgeons do is tackle big problems.”
Trump endorsed Oz, helping carry him to a primary win. He has significant political capital invested in a race that’s critical to GOP hopes of a Senate takeover.
Outside, bumper stickers on cars referred to false claims that the 2020 election was stolen : “Biden Didn’t Win, Everyone Knows That,” read one sign on an RV.
There appeared to be significant support for Mastriano.
”I believe he’s an honest guy,” said Mike McGuirk, of Johnstown, who was wearing a Mastriano pin.
He stood at the back of the line with his wife, Peg. He said he was most concerned with crime and inflation, and believed that Shapiro had not done enough to combat the drug problem in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
”He’s a good Christian family man who wants to have a country left for his children and grandchildren,” Peg McGuirk said of Mastriano.
Rachael Morris, who home-schools her two children in Chester County, said she first met Mastriano during a 2020 Harrisburg rally opposing coronavirus restrictions.
”He was the only legislator out there with us. People were out of work,” Morris said. “Other legislators were unwilling to speak to us. He was our voice. That’s why we love him.”
Waiting for the main program to start in Philadelphia, Gini George looked up from the floor of the Liacouras Center and held her fist in the air. The 45-year-old from Northeast Philadelphia said she supports Fetterman because she can identify with him: Her mother has had two strokes. And she had chronic pain as a result of Lyme disease for 15 years.
”I know what it’s like to be looked at as if you’re not a member of society,” she said. “The fact that he got up there gives disabled people hope and a voice.”
George said she plans to vote for Democrats up and down the ticket Tuesday and is most concerned about abortion access and other social issues.
She was among a crowd that, according to a White House estimation, swelled to 7,500 people.
Elected Democrats including Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf spoke, and several officials invoked race, including Shapiro’s running mate, State Rep. Austin Davis, who would be the state’s first Black lieutenant governor.
He elicited loud boos when he told the crowd Mastriano had once been photographed donning Confederate military garb. The uniform, Davis said, “stands for the enslavement of Black and brown people.”
”He has showed us time and time again with his own words and actions that he’s unfit to serve as a senator in the General Assembly, let alone as our governor,” Davis said.
The rallies could energize solid partisans, but also carry some political risks. Trump is wildly popular with Republicans but has proven to be toxic with swing voters and suburban moderates — the group Oz has been wooing for months.
Biden, too, inspires antipathy from many voters, though he has taken a special pride in campaigning in Pennsylvania, his birthplace. Democrats were glad to see Trump in the state, hoping to cast the vote not as a referendum on Biden but as a choice between him and a Trump-led GOP.
While the Senate and House races are on edge, Shapiro has held substantial leads in public polling over Mastriano, though there are still fresh memories of significant polling misses in Pennsylvania.
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