Biden to meet with Black voters during Wednesday trip to Wisconsin

MADISON — In his fourth visit to the state this year, President Joe Biden will meet with Black voters in southeastern Wisconsin for a campaign event following the announcement of the Microsoft data center development expansion in Mount Pleasant.

Biden will “discuss the issues of this election and the important progress made under his leadership for the Black community,” according to the campaign.

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“I think it’s important that the president is here to talk at the grassroots level about how he’s actually affecting people’s lives, and I think what you’ve seen on previous trips and what you’ll see (Wednesday ), is that we have an opportunity to have a president who engages with people and has a real conversation with them,” Garren Randolph, coordinating campaign manager for Wisconsin Democrats, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Randolph said Democrats take nothing for granted and argued that Republicans are not courting black voters in a “real way,” noting that the Republican National Committee has refused to renew the lease for its Hispanic Outreach Center in the South of Milwaukee, Lincoln Village, and that the location should become an ice cream shop.

“We’re doing the work to earn the votes of the people. That’s why Joe Biden is back here for the fourth time. That’s why the vice president will be here next week for the fourth time,” Randolph said. “We’re going to be all over the state, making sure we’re actually talking to people and working to earn their votes.”

The organizing event is the first in a series of events planned this month, highlighting the campaign’s engagement with “key constituencies that will be critical to this election,” including a 14-member paid media campaign. million nationally that focuses in part on Black, Hispanic and AAPI media.

Following Biden’s visit, Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Milwaukee next Thursday, May 16 – also her fourth visit to Wisconsin this year. Harris will visit Wisconsin as part of her economic opportunity tour, the White House announced Tuesday, which highlights how the administration “has created economic opportunity, supported communities and made historic investments for the American people.”

The most recent Marquette University Law School poll, taken in early April, showed Biden trailing Trump among Wisconsin’s white registered voters, between 43 and 48 percent, and among Hispanic registered voters, between 36 and 57%. Among black registered voters, Biden led between 69 and 31 percent. With voters of other races or ethnicities, Biden led Trump 54% to 28%.

Ahead of Biden’s visit, participants will be trained on the campaign’s “relationship organizing” app, REACH, which provides supporters with pro-Biden content they can share with friends, family, and their feeds on social networks. The campaign included REACH in a pilot test of organizing efforts launched in Wisconsin and Arizona last fall.

The campaign will also run a full-page ad in the Wednesday and Thursday editions of the Racine Journal Times.

Among the items the campaign plans to highlight are measures that cap insulin costs at $35 a month for seniors and fund infrastructure projects in black communities divided decades ago by highway construction.

Biden’s latest trip to Wisconsin follows former Republican President Donald Trump’s second stop in the battleground state this year.

With polls showing a tight presidential race in the battleground state, Trump rallied the crowd in Waukesha last week around issues of immigration and the economy. It was his first rally since his criminal trial began in New York last month; he is accused of falsifying business records during his 2016 campaign to cover up an affair.

The Biden campaign has emphasized its commitment to Wisconsin, noting that this is the first time the Democratic presidential candidate has made Milwaukee a campaign headquarters in the state in at least two decades. That site is one of 46 general election offices across the state, according to the campaign, including one in Racine.