President Joe Biden will campaign in Scranton, Pennsylvania, his birthplace, while former President Donald Trump begins his criminal trial for falsifying company records in New York.
While his campaign highlights Trump's abortion stance, Biden's counterprogramming includes three days of economy-focused rallies in Scranton, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia.
Biden aides hope the two candidates' opposing images will speak eloquently to voters while the president maintains silent about his GOP rival's legal issues.
Tax Day on Monday inspired Biden's Scranton campaign speech on Tuesday, advisers say. They said the president will argue that if elected, Trump would give the wealthy tax cuts at the expense of the middle class.
Biden loyalists say the abortion disparities between the two contenders could put him over the top in November. One Biden ally added, “The campaign thinks the abortion issue is the margin of victory they need.”
After Trump stated the issue should be left to the states and took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade on Monday, Biden took time out of his schedule to prerecord a rebuttal.
After Trump said Friday that “we broke Roe v. Wade” and that leaving the issue to states is working “very brilliantly,” Vice President Kamala Harris quickly added a response to her planned campaign speech in Arizona, which followed the Supreme Court's ruling that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 is enforceable.
A Biden aide said the team is contemplating how to commemorate Florida's six-week abortion ban, which takes effect in a few weeks. Aides said voters will hear more directly from the president on abortion in comments and events.
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