PHILADELPHIA — President Barack Obama talked up his former No. 2, Joe Biden, and slammed the former vice president’s Republican opponent, President Trump. How much it helps in the campaign’s final 13 days remains to be seen.
While Obama encouraged Philadelphians to vote early for the Democratic presidential nominee at a drive-in get-out-the-vote rally in the parking lot of Citizens Bank Park, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies, there’s little question that Biden will dominate the city of Brotherly Love.
David, one of the few people who received an invitation to hear the former president speak in person, told the Washington Examiner while he and his family were waiting to go through security that he wanted to hear Obama work “to get as many young people and minority voters out to vote as possible,” and the president did just that.
During the speech, Obama urged voters not to wait until Election Day to cast their ballots for Biden. Rather, he told the crowd that they should vote by mail or go to early voting polling stations that are set up throughout the city. He even addressed the way Pennsylvanians need to seal their mail-in ballots.
David also said that Obama is “still the most popular” Democrat, and he hopes that the former president will have a similar impact as South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn did ahead of the state’s primary, which is considered a turning point for the Biden campaign during the primary season.
Haley, another attendee, said he wanted to hear more about “the man that Joe is” and an “endorsement of Joe’s character.”
John Brady, the local Democratic Party’s deputy executive director, told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview that the party isn’t just relying on Obama to turn out the vote, rather it’s looking for additional and unique ways to accomplish the same goal the former president was preaching.
Brady said the city’s Democratic Party is partnering with college campuses, disc jockeys in the city, community groups, and a group of ATV and motorcyclists, which predominately consists of young men of color, who have filmed campaign videos.
Despite Obama’s speech, Mustafa Rashed, a Democratic strategist with the Philadelphia-based Bellevue Strategies, told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview that Trump’s performance in Pennsylvania in 2016 should not be underestimated.
“They did a tremendous job of reaching and switching voters who had voted for President Obama, and in some cases twice, to vote for President Trump this time,” he said. “So disaffected voters turned off with — former Democrats became Republicans and made all the difference. And mind you, again, he won [by] 44,000 votes, which is less than 1% of the tally. So those moves that they made were enough to get the job done. And I think that if I’m President Trump, that’s something that I’m going to try to repeat again in Pennsylvania.”
He said that the “million-dollar question” is whether Biden can carry the Philadelphia suburbs by enough to put him over the top because it’s “highly unlikely” that the candidate who doesn’t win Pennsylvania will wind up at the necessary 270 Electoral College votes.
While more people are registered in Pennsylvania than four years ago, and more people are expected to vote in 2020, Rashed said that a higher turnout will not definitively benefit one candidate over the other.
