Harris’ allies seek to keep Biden’s coalition within their ranks

As President Joe Biden vying to stay in the presidential race this summer, advisers have often argued that there is a “Biden coalition” – a cohort that can only be held together by the incumbent president. With the Vice President Kamala Harris At the top of the Democratic ticket, there has been a shift in focus on these voters, such as white working-class voters in places like Pennsylvania, older adults and union members.

The pro-Harris super PAC has launched a series of commercials — running heavily during the Major League Baseball playoffs — featuring testimonials from working-class voters as well as voters who said they previously supported the former president. Donald Trumpwhich reflects Biden’s message. A coalition of labor groups targeting union members in battleground states points to Biden’s time in office. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has aimed to keep voters who backed Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 in the Democratic camp with a populist, progressive stance that builds on Biden’s record.

And the governor of Minnesota. Tim WalzHarris’ running mate has run a campaign that closely mirrors Biden’s trajectory in this and previous election cycles. On Friday in Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Walz made the case for a new Democratic nominee, emphasizing their shared values.

“That patriotism, that fierce patriotism that puts the American people first, is exactly what Kamala Harris has driven throughout her career,” Walz said at the same venue where Biden delivered an economic speech in April.

Biden’s advisers insist the president is continuing to reach out to key constituencies, albeit more subtly. On Friday, he held a formal event on tribal lands in Arizona, speaking with a group of voters who helped him carry the state four years ago.

Asked who, if not Biden, was making a pitch to Biden voters, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., responded, “Kamala Harris.” Harris’ campaign points to events such as a recent stop at a union hall in Lansing, Michigan, where she highlighted the administration’s gains in manufacturing and the critical role of unions in supporting the middle class.

Coons noted that the vice president campaigned in Pennsylvania’s largest cities, as well as places like Wilkes-Barre, Johnstown and Erie, to reach voters Biden has long considered his base. Biden’s longtime friend said he received numerous questions from Democratic supporters about the president during his recent stop in Scranton, which he in turn used to make another pitch for getting out the vote for Harris.

“Guys, it’s simple. If we lose, it will kill him. Literally,” Koons recalls. “If we win, nothing will make him happier.”

Harris faces a difficult balancing act, demonstrating loyalty while also seeking independence from Biden, who continues to suffer in the polls. She has repeatedly said in recent weeks that her presidency will not be a continuation of his. So the president’s allies say their efforts are critical to ensuring Biden diehards still hear about the president’s economic accomplishments.

And for some voters whom Biden defeated in 2020, the message was no longer about him.

“The paradox of this moment is that this administration … will go down as one of the most effective and transformative administrations in history,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. “But there is a difference between what will be seen through the lens of history and what we see now.”

Weingarten, noting that Biden has tapped Harris to lead the White House task force on organizing and empowering workers, said her union and others are focused on messaging among members, where they act as validators of the vice president for voters who are not so familiar with it or may hear counter-messages from Trump supporters.

“We’ve known her and worked with her for the last three and a half years, and we’ve become her surrogates in terms of who she is and what she represents,” Weingarten said before the Scranton event, which is part of her union’s national bus tour. . “In a way, we have become people who can say, ‘She is us, and she is fighting for us.’

A series of ads from Future Forward PAC, a group formed to support Biden’s reelection and focused on Harris’s election, features ads calling for tax fairness, a position Biden has put at the forefront. The ad shows a clip of Trump telling campaign donors that they are “fucking rich” and will get tax cuts if he is elected.

This week in New Hampshire, Biden was joined by Sanders to warn what a Republican administration and Congress would mean for another of the administration’s signature achievements: allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs.

Sanders praised Biden and Harris “for their courage to become the first administration in the history of this country to challenge the greed of the pharmaceutical industry.” It was one of two dozen events across the country that Sanders has attended since September that were meant to highlight the progressive agenda that was partially implemented under Biden, including stops at coordinated campaign offices in Nevada with members of the Culinary Workers Union and United Auto. Labor President Sean Fein in Michigan.

This weekend, Biden will travel to Pittsburgh to meet with members and leadership of LIUNA, which represents 70,000 workers in the construction and energy industries. The union held rallies and other organizing efforts there, as well as in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, targeting its own and other union members.

Behind closed doors, Biden met separately this week with union leaders in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to discuss efforts to encourage their members to support Harris. He recorded a video and placed a robocall to a Senate candidate in his home state of Delaware, Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester.

“Biden is delivering more historic results for American families, and he’s doing his best every day in the office and traveling the country highlighting the life-changing benefits and Vice President Harris’ role in delivering them,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com