Associated Press
Joe Biden is insisting he doesn’t “take anything for granted” as he launches into his busiest day of the general election campaign yet, with stops in three Upper Midwest states planned for Friday.
The Democratic Presidential candidate will appear at drive-in rallies in Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. While Iowa and Wisconsin are swing states that President Donald Trump won in 2016, Minnesota is one where Hillary Clinton was victorious. It’s the first state that a Democrat won in 2016 that Biden has visited in weeks; his last campaign event in such a state was in Nevada in early October.
Biden last visited Minnesota in September. But Republicans are making a play for the state, and Trump will campaign there Friday as well.
Still, Biden insisted to reporters that “I’m not concerned” about Minnesota. He said he was visiting the state because of its proximity to Iowa and Wisconsin, adding, “We’re gonna work for every single vote up ’til the last minute.”
When Joe Biden was last in Iowa, his Presidential campaign was on the verge of collapse and he was soundly trounced in the caucuses by a former Indiana mayor nearly 40 years his junior. He returns Friday as the Democratic nominee, believing he’s just days away from becoming President-elect.
President Donald Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, says it will cap his planned rally Friday in Rochester, Minnesota to 250 people at the insistence of state and local officials.
The announcement comes as Trump’s campaign sought to shift the venue to a nearby business but ultimately reversed course and moved ahead with the rally at the airport. Trump has packed thousands of supporters, most not wearing masks, into similar rallies across the country, despite the raging coronavirus pandemic.
The campaign said: “Thanks to the free speech-stifling dictates of Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, only the first 250 people will be admitted.”
In recent months Trump and his campaign have taken to calling their rallies “peaceful protests” as they flout local restrictions on gathering sizes due to the virus.
The Minnesota Department of Health has linked 28 coronavirus cases to other recent Trump campaign events in the state.
Democrat Joe Biden, meanwhile, will be holding a socially-distanced drive-in event in St. Paul on Friday, his campaign said.
