For the first time since he withdrew from the candidacy, US President Joe Biden plans to campaign alongside new presidential candidate Kamala Harris next week. Biden and Harris will travel together to the state of Maryland on Thursday, the White House announced on Friday. The topic of the visit was said to be curbing inflation.
Biden and Harris wanted to talk about the “progress” they made in reducing the cost of living for citizens, the White House said. Inflation is a central issue in the election campaign. Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump blames the Biden administration for the sharp rise in the cost of living for citizens.
Under Biden’s presidency, US inflation had risen to 9.1 percent by June 2022, the highest level in almost 40 years. However, the causes were mainly the corona pandemic and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. The inflation rate then fell significantly again. Last June it was 3.0 percent.
On July 21, after weeks of debate about his mental ability to run for a second term, 81-year-old Biden announced that he would not be running in the presidential election in November and called for Vice President Harris to be his successor. The 59-year-old was then nominated as the new presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in an electronic vote between last Thursday and Monday.
Biden largely stayed out of the election campaign after withdrawing from the race. However, according to a report in the political magazine “Politico”, Harris would like the president’s support in states considered crucial to the election outcome, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Biden remains popular, especially among white older voters.
Possibly the first African-American woman of Asian descent to hold the presidency, her candidacy has sparked new enthusiasm among Democrats – which has increased even further since she named the down-to-earth and quick-witted governor of the state of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as her vice presidential candidate on Tuesday. The first joint campaign appearances by Harris and Walz were attended by tens of thousands of people.
Harris has now closed Biden’s gap to Trump in the polls. In several surveys conducted in recent days, she has a slight lead over her Republican rival nationwide.
On September 10, Harris and Trump will face off in a televised debate. This was announced on Thursday by ABC, the broadcaster on which the debate will take place.
It is unclear whether there will be further televised debates between the two. Trump proposed three debates in September at a short-notice press conference on Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. He said he was looking forward to it because things needed to be set right.
At the press conference, Trump also criticized Harris for not having given an interview as a presidential candidate. She “hasn’t given a single interview – she can’t give an interview, she’s barely competent,” said the 78-year-old. The vice president later said that she had spoken to her team about “arranging an interview before the end of the month.”
