What President Biden’s campaign kickoff in Philadelphia signals about his reelection campaign

Most political strategy isn’t that hard to decipher. President Joe Biden is launching his political reelection campaign with a rally among union members in Philadelphia.

To remain in the White House, Biden needs Pennsylvania, and he needs working-class voters. Unions are also a huge part of Biden’s political identity, and helped fuel his win in 2020. So, too, is Pennsylvania a central character in Biden’s personal story — and his presidential victory.

“Philadelphia is his home base for so many things,” said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based public affairs consultant. “It’s an electoral base. It’s a fundraising base, and it’s a union base. I think if candidates believe in good luck charms, Philadelphia’s a good luck charm for Joe Biden.”

Biden opened his 2020 presidential run at a Pittsburgh union hall where he pronounced: “I’m a union man. Period.”

This kickoff rally, hosted by the AFL-CIO, which endorsed Biden on Friday along with 17 other unions around the country, will frame the president’s reelection pitch and his economic message as he looks to boost low approval ratings and motivate the coalition that narrowly delivered him a 2020 win.

“Joe Biden ran for President on the promise of rebuilding America’s middle class, the backbone of our country’s economy, and his unprecedented support for the labor movement is fundamental to how he’s doing exactly that as President,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

Biden is expected to preview a campaign centered on creating jobs, lowering unemployment and prescription drug costs, and boosting manufacturing. The rally comes after the campaign and the DNC launched a six-figure ad campaign about Biden fighting back against Republican pushes for economic cuts during budget negotiations.

In Philadelphia, Biden visits have become almost as commonplace as stadium traffic.

The president has made near-monthly trips to the city this year. He was at a Democratic National Committee winter meeting in February, he gave his budget proposal here in March, and he attended events for his granddaughter at the University of Pennsylvania in May and April.

In his 2020 campaign, his first big fundraiser as a candidate was at David L. Cohen’s house. His campaign was headquartered here. (This time it’s in Wilmington, Del.)

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Biden has picked Philadelphia as the backdrop for some of the biggest speeches of his presidency. He talked about the importance of voting rights from a stage in the grand hall of the Constitution Center. He warned of threats to democracy from the lawn of Independence Hall, and he gave a budget proposal from a union training facility in the Northeast.

He’ll need to motivate voters in Philadelphia, which delivers a critical chunk of Democratic votes but where turnout has slumped in recent years.

Holding onto a state he won by a slim 1% margin will mean spending a lot of time all over the commonwealth. Biden’s 2020 victory in Pennsylvania came in part due to outperforming Hillary Clinton by small margins in more rural counties. He took a train tour through rust-belt parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania ending in Johnstown, where he spoke in front of a locomotive and told voters Trump “doesn’t have a plan to help you.”

Biden has long emphasized his connection with middle-class America, forged in humble beginnings in Scranton and then decades spent taking Amtrak from Washington home to Delaware every night to be with his children.

“I’m Jill’s husband and Jean Finnegan’s son,” he said to a crowd in Scranton in October 2019. “I’m from 2446 N. Washington Ave., and I’m happy to be home.”

Biden likes talking about the people who “brung him to the dance.” Sometimes the dance-bringer changes, but more often than not, it’s labor. He opened remarks at a 2019 AFL-CIO appearance in Philly thanking labor for getting him to the White House.

While Saturday is his first campaign rally, he visited the North America’s Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference in Washington in April, just hours after announcing his reelection bid.

“I make no apologies for being labeled the most pro-union president in American history,” he said then.

Unions are part of his political identity.

“I think it just sort of goes to his core,” Ceisler said. “It’s who he is, and these are the people he identifies with and wants to be known as supportive of and a friend of.”

Biden isn’t really competing for the largest labor organizations’ support. He won unions handily in 2020 and he doesn’t currently face any serious Democratic primary challengers. But holding on to rank-and-file working-class voters, some of whom belong to unions, will be key.

“He made important inroads with union households in 2020, which was critical to picking up important battleground states,” said Brendan McPhillips, a Democratic campaign operative who ran Biden’s 2020 campaign in Pennsylvania. “But there’s still work to do there, so it’s smart to come out showing a united labor coalition, which Trump would try to win back.”

Unions can be a powerful political force to energize and turn out voters. Union backing was one factor in former City Councilmember Cherelle Parker’s victory in the Philadelphia Democratic mayoral primary.

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Still, gaining the approval of the leaders of a union doesn’t always translate to rank-and-file member support. Biden won the support of about six in 10 union members in 2020, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of the national electorate.

The issues and priorities of organized labor can differ or even conflict across industries. Biden’s record on labor has largely been lauded by unions who point to his federal appointments, the increasing numbers of federal workers who are unionized, and efforts to stop union busting or obstacles to organizing.

Biden did receive some criticism in December for signing legislation preventing a nationwide rail strike. And earlier this month, the White House press office apologized for crossing a digital picket line by promoting coverage from the news outlet Insider, where reporters were striking.

Biden will kick off his reelection in a friendly room, but the electorate overall has cooled on him. About 54% of Americans disapprove of the job he’s doing and 40% approve. That’s on par with favorability polling for former President Donald Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary, who is facing federal and state charges.

As Biden runs on his record, GOP presidential contenders have already started attacking it, blaming Biden and Democrats for inflation and increased government spending.

Republicans in Pennsylvania also promised they’ll fight to expose what they describe as a disastrous first term.

“I’m told that Joe Biden is going to have a campaign where he says he needs four more years to finish the job,” U.S. Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R., Pa.) said in a briefing with reporters ahead of Biden’s visit Friday. “I don’t know what this job is, but it’s not good for the working class of America. ... If you just look at the working and middle class, they’ve been hit very hard by Joe Biden.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.