Gavin Newsom is coming to Bucks County for a Biden rally

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a top surrogate for President Joe Biden, is traveling to Bucks County to campaign for the president Saturday as Biden continues to face pressure to suspend his campaign after his disastrous debate performance last month.

Newsom is scheduled to headline a rally at 10:30 a.m. in the critical swing county alongside local Democratic officials and candidates. The Biden campaign has not yet disclosed the exact location of the event timed to happen one day ahead of the president’s first visit to Pennsylvania since the debate.

Saturday’s rally will focus on “Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy and threats to our fundamental rights and freedoms,” the campaign said in a news release.

Newsom will campaign for Biden later in the afternoon alongside state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D.,Philadelphia), a candidate for state auditor, at an event hosted by the Chester County Democratic Party in Malvern.

The rallies are part of a crush of public events the campaign has scheduled in an effort to reassure voters that the 81-year-old president can handle another term in office.

In the days since the debate, panic among Democrats has mounted as some pressure Biden to suspend his campaign in favor of a younger candidate. While prominent Democrats such as former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro have said Biden should step aside and others, like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed concern for his mental state, Pennsylvania’s Democrats have remained publicly on the side of the campaign.

Newsom, the 56-year-old second-term governor, has fiercely defended Biden even as his own name has been floated as a possible replacement candidate.

According to the Associated Press, Newsom campaigned on Biden’s behalf in Michigan Thursday. He urged a gathering of local Democrats in the state to “not fall prey to all of this negativity.”

“I believe in this man. I believe in his character. I believe that he has been one of the most transformative presidents in our collective lifetimes,” Newsom said at the event. “We’re so good at focusing on what’s wrong and not celebrating what’s right.”

Biden and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to visit Pennsylvania on Sunday. They were originally scheduled to speak at the National Education Association conference but the campaign announced Friday the president would change plans to avoid crossing a picket line of NEA employees. The conference has since been canceled because of the strike declared Friday by NEA staffers.

In an interview with the Philadelphia radio station WURD published on Thursday, Biden dismissed his performance as “a bad debate.”

“Ninety minutes on stage does not erase what I’ve done for three and a half years,” he said.

Biden, however, stumbled over his words at times in the interview. In an attempt to note he served with the first Black president, Barack Obama, and now serves with the first Black vice president, Kamala Harris, Biden struggled to get the words out creating a sound bite he is already being criticized for.

“The first vice president, the first Black woman to serve with a Black president,” he said.

The interview largely focused on Biden’s first-term record and the stakes of the election.

“The guy I’m running against is a convicted felon and said he wanted to be a dictator on day one,” Biden said.