Biden Touts Job Growth in First Re-Election Campaign Rally

The AFL-CIO, which includes 60 unions representing more than 12.5 million workers, hosted the rally to trumpet their historically early endorsement of Biden’s candidacy, which came Friday. Labor unions traditionally provide Democratic candidates with significant organizing muscle, and the event was designed to show that they have coalesced behind Biden well ahead of what is expected to be a bitterly contested election season.

It comes days after Biden locked up endorsements from four major environmental groups including the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, shoring up support from another major chunk of the Democratic coalition and one that has at times been at odds with labor unions.

Still, some potential fissures in the Democratic base remain. During a video testimonial that played before Biden spoke, an Alaska union member thanked the president for greenlighting the Willow project, a drilling project expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak. Environmentalists have called it a “carbon bomb” and have strongly criticized Biden for the decision. 

The early flex from the nascent Biden re-election campaign was designed to contrast with the uncertainty in the Republican field. GOP front-runner Donald Trump has been twice indicted and could face a third set of charges in Georgia while an increasingly crowded GOP field threatens to prevent Republican votes from coalescing around one alternative. 

Biden’s rally came ahead of the build-out of much of his re-election apparatus. The president is planning to locate his re-election campaign in Delaware, according to a White House official who spoke to reporters ahead of the event in her personal capacity. 

Biden so far faces only nominal competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many of his major rivals from the 2020 primary either work in his White House or have signed on to participate in his campaign. The president announced his re-election campaign in April via a video. 

Republicans say they are unfazed by Biden’s early push. “They’re worried Joe Biden can’t make it to the election without major gaffes,” said Kristin Davison, a top official at Never Back Down, an outside group supporting Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s

Biden focused his remarks on the economy, ticking through how some of his major legislative victories will affect the bank accounts of working people. He said that Republican efforts to repeal his legislative agenda should be seen as an attack on the working class. “Guess what? They’re coming for your jobs,” Biden said. “They’re coming for your future.” 

Biden’s advisers have been privately frustrated that the president hasn’t received the credit they feel he deserves for keeping unemployment historically low as wages have increased. Three of five respondents disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, according to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted in April.

Biden also doled out a helping of red meat for the union audience. “If investment bankers in this country went on strike tomorrow nobody would miss—notice them,” Biden said, to laughter from the audience. In contrast, he said, if union workers failed to show up “the country would come to a grinding halt.”

That said, the president’s primary focus for now is raising money—even from some of those same bankers. On Friday Biden spoke to about three dozen guests in the Greenwich, Conn., home of billionaire couple Sue and Stephen Mandel. There he touted his deal-making skills in lifting the debt ceiling. 

Next week Biden plans four fundraisers on a trip to California’s Bay Area. He is also expected to appear before donors on swings through Chicago, New York and the Washington suburbs this month.

Write to Annie Linskey at [email protected]