'There's so damn much at stake,' Biden tells labor crowd in Beaver County
CENTER TWP., Pa. – Taking an election homestretch swing through western Pennsylvania on Monday, Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden touted his labor ties during a stop at the Community College of Beaver County.
“I hope I’ve demonstrated that labor can rely on me,” Biden said before about 100 masked supporters while on stage in a windy parking lot. “It’s go time. Tomorrow is the day.”
In a 15-minute address, Biden thanked the union members gathered for canvassing for him and stressed how significant a victory over President Donald Trump would be for the country.
“What happens tomorrow is going to determine what this country looks like for a couple generations, and that’s not a joke,” Biden said. “I really genuinely believe that. There’s so damn much at stake.”
Trump won Beaver County, where Democrats still hold a voter registration advantage, by 19 percentage points in 2016, and he will likely need to increase that margin this year to offset expected Biden gains in southeastern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.
More:Beaver County Republicans hope to ride 'red wave' to become the dominant party
More:Trump barely won Pennsylvania in 2016. His 2020 election may depend on keeping this swing state.
The stop by Biden in Beaver County was his first in western Pennsylvania before he held two other events in Pittsburgh, including a drive-in rally at Heinz Field with singer Lady Gaga. Meanwhile, his running mate, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, was focusing on eastern Pennsylvania and would end the day in Philadelphia at a rally with singer John Legend.
On Monday, Biden, weaving in a story about his father losing his job and moving the family from Scranton to Delaware for work, said Americans are worried about their jobs and the security they bring.
Trump, Biden said, cannot empathize with those concerns amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“He can only see the world from Park Avenue. He can’t see what families like yours or mine have gone through so he refuses to do the work to get this virus under control,” Biden said. “He refused to do the work to get our schools and our small businesses the resources they need to stay open – firefighters, teachers, cops, a whole lot of hard working folks. He refused to bring Congress together.”
Trump has ignored working Americans’ needs because “he thinks Wall Street built this country,” Biden said. “Well, I’ve got news for him. You already know it. Wall Street didn’t build America, the middle-class did and unions built the middle class.”
Biden once again said he would not ban fracking, the focus of frequent attacks from Trump during his Pennsylvania rallies and in campaign commercials.
Trump is a “loser” for allegedly leveling the same insult at deceased veterans, said Biden, recalling the military service of his late Beau Biden.
Biden said he would only raise taxes on those making $400,000 or more and use the revenue to invest in programs, such as a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, to create “millions of good-paying union jobs.”
U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17, Allegheny County, who gave some remarks before Biden’s took the stage, said he was “very proud and honored” that the Democratic candidate would visit Beaver County, which is in Lamb’s district, the day before the election.
“What it tells me is that he knows Beaver County is a place where people are pretty independent-minded and willing to listen,” Lamb said, “and above all they value jobs and the rights of working people and the middle class.”
J.T. Pennington, a Republican and retired Aliquippa firefighter, was at the CCBC event along with other union members, including steam fitters and iron workers, many of whom have been helping to build Shell Chemicals’ $6 billion ethane cracker plant a few miles away in Potter Township.
“Joe supports labor and firefighters,” Pennington said. “His entire career, he’s always had firefighters’ backs.”
Trump, Pennington said, “does not support unions and he’s 100 percent right to work, and as a voting member I cannot support that.”
J.D. Prose writes for the USA TODAY Network's Pennsylvania State Capitol Bureau. He can be reached at jprose@gannett.com or @jdprose on Twitter.