President Biden slammed “MAGA Republicans” on Monday as he made Labor Day appeals to traditionally Democratic union members in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
With the midterms campaign starting in earnest, Biden made a pitch to working-class voters he hopes will help Democrats keep control of the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives in November.
“The middle class built America,” Biden told a workers’ gathering at park grounds in Milwaukee. “Everybody knows that. But unions built the middle class.”
The unofficial start of fall, Labor Day also traditionally starts a political season where campaigns scramble to excite voters for Election Day on Nov. 8. That’s when control of the House and Senate, as well some of the country’s top governorships, will be decided.
Trump has endorsed candidates in key races around the country and Biden is warning that some Republicans now believe so strongly in Trumpism that they are willing to undermine core American values to promote it. The president said Thursday that “blind loyalty to a single leader, and a willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy.”
On Monday, Biden said, “Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican” but singled out those who have taken Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign cry to dangerous or hateful lengths. He highlighted episodes like last year’s mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“But together we can, and we must, choose a different path forward,” Biden said. “A future of unity and hope. We’re going to choose to build a better America.”
He was joined by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who is running for reelection against Tim Michels, a Republican construction executive endorsed by Trump.
Evers and Biden both stressed the White House’s efforts to bolster middle-class families by boosting the economy.
“We have a president who understands the challenges facing working families,” Evers told the crowd. He said that Biden “hasn’t forgotten that working families matter, not just on Labor Day, but every single day of the year.”
Biden drew cheers when he shut down a heckler by saying “Everyone is entitled to be an idiot.”
Union endorsements helped Biden overcome disastrous early finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to win the 2020 Democratic primary and eventually the White House. He has since continued to praise the labor movement as president.
Mary Kay Henry, president of the 2-million-member Service Employees International Union, called Biden’s championing of unions heading into the midterm elections “critical” and said workers must “mobilize in battlegrounds across the country to ensure that working people turn out.”
In Pennsylvania, Biden was delivering remarks outside a union hall. He didn’t march in nearby Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade, which is among the nation’s largest, despite attending the 2015 installment as vice president and returning in 2018. Both times, Biden, now 79, faced questions about whether he’d run for president in coming elections — which he opted against in 2016 before winning the White House in 2020.
The two swing states could decide which party controls the Senate next year, while the winner of each governorship may influence the results of the 2024 presidential election. The stakes are particularly high given that some Trump-aligned candidates have spread lies about widespread fraud that did not occur during the 2020 election — raising questions about what might happen if a candidate they don’t support wins the next presidential contest.
Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to organized labor at a breakfast meeting with the Greater Boston Labor Council, declaring, “When union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up.
“When union workplaces are safer, everyone is safer,” Harris said. “When unions are strong, America is strong.”
With News Wire Services
