Joe Biden Makes Appeal To Working-Class Voters

MANITOWOC – Joe Biden made his second trip of the year to battleground Wisconsin on Monday, excoriating President Donald Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic while also making an appeal to working class voters.

In the visit to Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry in Manitowoc, the former vice president spoke directly to people in the northeastern county who backed Barack Obama for president before swinging to Trump in 2016.

"I know many of you were frustrated, you're angry," Biden said. "You believed you weren't being seen, respected or heard. I get it. It has to change. And I promise you this: It will change with me. You will be seen, heard and respected by me."

Biden visited the foundry just days after Trump swept into central Wisconsin and spoke to a largely maskless crowd. On Monday, by contrast, Biden wore a mask and greeted workers on site with elbow bumps before touring the facility. A limited number of attendees and reporters sat apart from one another during the speech.

As the country hovered around 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, Biden criticized the president's response to the pandemic and laid into him for holding large rallies that put people at risk while he maintains a distance. Biden also alluded to recent revelations that Trump intentionally downplayed the virus' severity early on so people wouldn't panic.

"Trump panicked," Biden said. "The virus was too big for him."

Wisconsin hit its own grim milestone over the weekend: More than 100,000 people have been infected by COVID-19 since the pandemic's onset, including more than 1,200 who died.

"I worry we're risking becoming numb to the toll it has taken on us and our country and communities like this," Biden said. "We can't let that happen. We can't lose the ability to feel the sorrow and the loss and the anger for so many lives lost."

Biden's visit came amid a flurry of campaign activity as both candidates aim to woo voters in the state Trump narrowly won in 2016. Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to stop in Eau Claire on Thursday - the third time this month he's visited Wisconsin - and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will deliver a foreign policy speech in the state Capitol on Wednesday.

The Manitowoc stop also comes days after the death of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which has changed the dynamic of an already contentious presidential race. Trump said Monday he will announce his nominee to replace Ginsburg by the end of the week, and the Senate is expected to take up the matter swiftly despite opposition from Democrats who say the decision should wait until after the election.

In a speech Sunday in Philadelphia, Biden implored Republican U.S. senators to let the winner of the election pick the next justice. He also fended off criticism from the Trump campaign for not releasing a list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

Biden did not address Ginsburg's death during his speech in Manitowoc but used the occasion to call for unity and pledged to represent all people if he's elected, regardless of political ideology.

"I don't pledge allegiance to red states of America or blue states of America. ... This is not a partisan moment," he said.

Biden looks to win back voters

For Biden, Manitowoc County is an opportunity to win back voters that overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the county by more than 20 points that year, four years after Republican Mitt Romney carried it by just three points over Obama. Obama won the county in 2008.

Biden spent much of his speech blasting Trump's tax cuts and trade policies, which he contends have hurt manufacturers, and he presented himself as someone who understands the priorities and struggles of working class people.

"He sees the world from Park Avenue," Biden said. "I see it from where I grew up in a town like this, Scranton, Pennsylvania. A hard-(scrabble), hard-working town, just like this and so many more across Wisconsin."

Biden also noted that Trump ran vowing to represent the forgotten man.

"Once he got in office, he forgot us," Biden said, adding, "the truth is, he never really respected us very much."

Outside the foundry, the county's political divide was on display as hundreds of Biden and Trump supporters gathered on opposite sides of the road.

"I feel that (Biden and Harris) are the best chance of ever healing our country, healing our people," said LouAnn Pinelli of Two Rivers.

Trump supporters countered with chants of "four more years."

Judy Virnoche of Manitowoc said the president "is not going to allow socialism and he's not a politician like the rest of them ... and that's why we'll vote for him."

Before his speech, Biden toured the cavernous facility. He made a brief stop at a furnace that processes molten aluminum at intense heat, then spoke with four workers near a grinding station. The employees wore masks and socially distanced.

Biden's stop Monday was his second in Wisconsin in recent weeks after months of virtual campaigning due to concerns over COVID-19. He visited Kenosha in the wake of unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake by police and met with Blake's family and talked to him by phone.

Biden accepted his nomination for president in his home state of Delaware last month after the Democratic National Convention went virtual and abandoned most in-person events in Milwaukee.

GOP: 'If Joe Biden

wins, China wins'

Andrew Hitt, chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, lauded the president's record and attacked Biden.

"If Joe Biden wins, China wins," Hitt said in a statement. "During his 47 years in government, Biden was one of China's biggest cheerleaders. He championed the disastrous decision to allow China entry into the World Trade Organization, and just recently refused to call them an opponent. Biden bows to China."

Meanwhile, in a conference call arranged by the Trump campaign, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce CEO Kurt Bauer praised the president for policies on the economy. Bauer cited the president and his administration on working to cut regulations while also successfully completing a revamped trade deal with Canada and Mexico.

"I think the Trump record speaks for itself," Bauer said. "He has done a great job rebuilding the business climate in the United States to make it globally competitive. I think from a business perspective he has earned another four years in the White House."

Still, recent polling shows Biden with an edge over the president. A poll released last week by the Washington Post and ABC News found Biden leading Trump 52% to 46% among likely Wisconsin voters, and a recent survey by Marquette University Law School found Biden leading Trump 47% to 43%.

Both results were within the polls' margins of error.

Alisa Schafer of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin contributed to this report.