Joe Biden is heading to Georgia and Michigan this weekend to shore up his falling support with Black voters, which is at a historic low for a Democratic incumbent president
It comes as Mr Biden’s 2024 rival for the White House, Donald Trump,has taken steps to improve his standing with Black voters, particularly Black men.
Mr Biden is scheduled to give the Saturday commencement address at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a historically Black college where the late Martin Luther King graduated.
“Given the way the Biden-Harris Administration has delivered for Black America, and HBCUs, there is no better speaker for this year’s commencement ceremony than President Biden,” Tsaid Trey Baker, a senior campaign adviser to Mr Biden’s re-election campaigns in a memo to reporters.
The president will also speak at the NAACP Freedom Fund’s dinner in Detroit, Michigan, on Sunday.
A New York Times/Siena College poll this week showed that 14 per cent of Black voters said they would vote for Mr Trump if the election were held today while only 49 per cent said they would vote for Mr Biden.
Mr Biden’s tour comes after Vice President Kamala Harris visited Detroit last week to highlight the Biden administration’s focus on Black-owned businesses.
But the visit was derailed by news that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would attack Rafah as part of its war against Hamas in Gaza.
“We are not, and will not, parachute into these communities at the last minute, expecting their vote,” the memo said. “Every day, from now until election day, we will continue working diligently to ensure that come November, Black voters send Joe Biden and Kamala Harris back to the White House to continue delivering for Black America in unprecedented ways.”
The Biden campaign is investing heavily in Black voter outreach and has launched a $30m ad campaign in battleground states that would also target Black and Latino voters.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump and an outside group have run ads to reach Black voters.
Mr Trump also had prominent Black surrogates such as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and Representative Byron Donalds of Florida campaign for him.
More recently, Mr Donalds traveled to New York to show his support for Mr Trump amid his criminal trial related to hush money he paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Mr Scott is seen as a frontrunner to be Mr Trump’s running mate.
The survey also showed Mr Biden underwater against Mr Trump in both Michigan and Georgia. Mr Trump had won both states in 2016, but Mr Biden flipped them both in 2020, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since Bill Clinton did in 1992.
