President Joe Biden on Thursday visited the only Michigan county to correctly elect the president in the last four elections, hoping for some luck ahead of St. Patrick’s Day.
In 2020, Biden won Saginaw County by just 303 votes over now-former President Donald Trump, who will be his rival again in 2024.
Biden arrived Thursday afternoon in Saginaw, Michigan after making a campaign stop Wednesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In both locales, Biden concentrated his efforts on courting black voters — who could make or break his re-election bid depending on turnout.
The county also has a large number of unionized voters.
President Joe Biden met with supporters in the city of Saginaw, Michigan on the front porch of a city council member’s home. The city has a high population of black voters, which Biden needs to win re-election in the battleground state
The president can be seen speaking to supporters on the front porch of City Councilman Bill Ostash, speaking in his usual Bidenisms, including: “God made man, then man made firefighters”
The president was captured hugging a supporter on Ostash’s front porch during the first of two stops in Saginaw he made Thursday afternoon after campaigning for re-election Wednesday in Milwaukee, Wis.
Earlier Thursday, Biden said in a statement that he opposed Japan’s Nippon Steel buying US Steel for $14.9 billion — a deal strongly opposed by steel unions.
The president first pulled up to the home of Bill Ostash, a Saginaw city councilman, where he worked with a crowd waiting for him on the front porch.
He could be heard uttering his usual Bidenisms — “God made man, so man made firefighters,” and retelling the story of his Delaware house fire, telling supporters he nearly lost his wife, Corvette and cat, which has been deemed an exaggeration by fact checkers.
The pool of reporters covering the president was moved away from the president after an official said Biden would take questions.
Biden also stopped at a public golf course during his afternoon in Saginaw.
He was met by Hurley Coleman III – a community leader – and his son Hurley ‘HJ’ Coleman IV.
‘Sir. Coleman was taught to play golf by his father as a child because he believed the game teaches discipline, patience and valuable social skills, and he is now passing the game on to his son for the same reasons, the campaign said.
President Biden and the Colemans gathered inside the clubhouse and talked about golf, faith, their family and their hopes for the future. Both President Biden and HJ sunk their putts,” a statement from the campaign added.
President Joe Biden poses for a photo with Hurley ‘HJ’ Coleman IV (right) and his father Hurley Coleman III (left) at Pleasant View Golf Club in Saginaw, Michigan. It’s the second time the president has held a private meeting this week with a family in a key swing mode
A member of the Saginaw Police Department stands guard near a home in Saginaw, Michigan as the president attends a campaign stop at a nearby home
Reporters were not allowed access to the golf club, so they were unable to confirm the campaign’s boast about Biden’s putting skills.
The general election campaigns for both Biden and Trump are officially underway as they both became their respective parties’ presumptive nominees on Tuesday night, collecting the amount of delegates needed to clinch the nominations at the conventions this summer.
Even before that, Biden and Trump were vying for votes in battleground states — as they both traveled to Georgia Saturday for respective rallies — Biden for Atlanta and Trump for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district in Rome, Georgia.
A day earlier, Biden made a private house call in Pennsylvania and then rallied supporters in Delaware County, just south of Philadelphia.
Biden also visited Manchester, New Hampshire — another battleground state — earlier this week.
Both campaigns expect the 2024 race to be as close as the last two.
In 2016, Trump pulled Michigan away from the Democratic column and won America’s high-five over Hillary Clinton by fewer than 11,000 votes.
That victory was partly explained by reduced voter turnout in predominantly black areas such as Detroit’s Wayne County, where voters came out more strongly to elect and re-elect President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.
But in 2020, Biden bettered those numbers, defeating Trump in Michigan by 154,000 votes.
While he did not make public remarks Thursday, he made a pitch to black voters specifically in a speech Wednesday in Milwaukee, expressing his distaste for the historic and racist practices of red-lighting and having freeways cut through majority-minority neighborhoods.
“But instead of connecting communities, it divided them, these highways actually tore them apart,” the president said.
He touted that his administration was setting aside money to address problems like poor water systems — such as in Flint, Michigan — and food deserts.
‘Today we recognize that history in order to create new history. I’m here to announce a first-of-its-kind investment — $3.3 billion, $3.3 billion in 132 in 42 states to help right historical wrongs,” the president said.