With just days left before the Nov. 3 presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden made a campaign stop in Milwaukee on Friday night.
There were no large crowds — only around 50 or so people gathered in an airport hanger on a cold fall night. There were white socially distanced circles on the ground marking where people should sit or stand.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way Biden has campaigned. Still, he says it was important to come back to Wisconsin, even with the surge in COVID-19 cases here. Democrats narrowly lost the state in 2016. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee back then, didn’t visit Wisconsin after the primary, a key battleground state.
“I’ve been here a lot. And by the way, when I get elected, if I get elected, I’m coming back,” Biden says.
Biden stuck to the expected themes, hammering the president over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden says American’s make up only 4% of the world’s population and 20% of coronavirus deaths.
Around 2,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Wisconsin. Biden says wearing a mask shouldn’t be a political statement.
“For God’s sake, it’s our patriotic duty. The reason you’re wearing the mask isn’t to save yourself, but to save your neighbor," he says.
When it comes to the economy, Biden says Wisconsin has lost 20,000 manufacturing jobs since the start of the pandemic and that things were trending downward even before that.
President Trump was also in Wisconsin on Friday. He told supporters in Green Bay that while he’s expecting a close race here, he plans to win it. Trump is expected to make at least one more visit to Wisconsin before Tuesday’s election.
