President Joe Biden broadened his travel to battleground Arizona as voters headed to the polls in Georgia, a state he avoided before last month’s midterm elections and Tuesday’s Senate runoff.
Biden’s trip to Phoenix underscored the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company announcing its plans for a second microchip facility in the state, with customer Apple CEO Tim Cook accompanying TSMC founder Morris Chang to the presidential event. But Biden’s trip also emphasized Arizona’s political importance amid speculation the incumbent will launch his 2024 campaign after the holidays.
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Arizona will be critical for Democrats in 2024, as it was in 2020 and 2022, with Biden connecting his economic policies to TSMC’s investment, resilient supply chains, and more jobs, according to Brookings Institution Governance Studies Vice President Darrell West.
“It is one of the four to five states that likely will decide the presidential election,” West told the Washington Examiner of Arizona, along with Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. “I would expect Biden to spend a lot of time there over the next two years.”
University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy associate professor Samara Klar added her state is “a bona fide purple state” that has rejected former President Donald Trump and Trump-endorsed candidates.
“If Biden is preparing for [a] 2024 run, Arizona will be a state he certainly sees as one he can win — for the second consecutive time,” she said.
TSMC’s Arizona investment comes after Intel broke ground on a $20 billion semiconductor facility in Chandler last fall and before lithium-ion battery cell manufacturer KORE Power does the same for a $1.2 billion plant in Buckeye by the end of the year, according to the White House.
“We’ve seen more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs created under this president,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday. “He is going to continue to talk about that, talk about the CHIPS and Science Act, and that historic piece of legislation that was a bipartisan piece of legislation that is going to continue making sure that we have manufacturing jobs right here in the U.S.”
West, a Brookings Center for Technology Innovation senior fellow, agreed Biden’s advocacy of the TSMC semiconductor facility will “boost manufacturing in a key sector.”
“That facility is crucial to making computer chips, which drive the digital economy,” he said. “Biden is investing billions in that area in order to make sure the U.S. has a strong domestic production capability for chips.”
Jean-Pierre declined to be drawn on the politics of Biden’s Arizona trip after the commander in chief became the first Democrat to clinch the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1996, edging Trump in 2020 by 0.3 percentage points, or 10,000 votes. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D) is also up for election in 2024.
“He’s a president for everyone,” the press secretary said. “Whether you live in a red state, blue state, purple state, this is about delivering for the American people. This is about keeping his promises as he moves forward with his economic policies.”
Biden has reiterated it is his “intention” to seek reelection in 2024, irrespective of the midterm elections as his popularity improves, but described himself as “a great respecter of fate.”
“This is, ultimately, a family decision. I think everybody wants me to run, but we’re going to have discussions about it,” Biden said last month during his post-election press conference. “My guess is it would be early next year we make that judgment.”
White House chief of staff Ron Klain told the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit this week that he expects Biden to make a 2024 decision “shortly after the holiday” and that “the decision will be to do it,” days after the president called on the Democratic National Committee to upend the primary calendar in a manner advantageous to him.
Biden came under fire ahead of his Arizona trip for not taking the time to visit the border.
“Instead of witnessing his border crisis in person, Biden is letting fentanyl pour into our communities and millions of illegal immigrants come into the country. American families are less safe because of Biden’s open border in Arizona and across the country,” said Nainoa Johsens, a Republican National Committee spokesman.
“There are more important things going on,” Biden told reporters on the South Lawn before departing. “They’re going to invest billions of dollars in the new enterprise in the state.”
TSMC’s second Arizona facility will produce advanced 3-nanometer semiconductors by 2026, increasing its investment in the state from $12 billion to $40 billion, one of the country’s largest foreign direct commitments. It will also start making smaller chips, from 5 nm to 4 nm, at its first factory.
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“Two years ago, the Phoenix unemployment rate was 6.5%, over 9,000 Phoenix residents had filed for bankruptcy, and roughly one in six small businesses were permanently closing,” the White House said. “Today, the Phoenix area unemployment rate is down to 3.2%, while the overall Arizona economy grew by 6.3% in 2021, the most in 16 years.”
