Joe Biden, in Scranton, Says Trump Owes Current Economy to Obama Years

Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is a low 3.9 percent, though it is higher, 5.2 percent, in Lackawanna County, where Scranton is. A manufacturing downturn may be underway statewide, with 8,100 jobs lost this year so far, an issue that could cut into the president’s 2016 promises to restore industry in the Rust Belt.

While Mr. Biden visited Scranton in northeast Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump was scheduled to be in Pittsburgh in the western part of the state on Wednesday afternoon, to address natural gas drillers. The president’s visit comes close to the one-year anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in that city when a gunman killed 11 worshipers.

Though Democrats made strong gains in the 2018 midterms in Pennsylvania, it is very much up in the air whether they will carry the state next year, and who would be their most formidable opponent to the president. Mr. Trump has held rallies both before and since his election at an arena in nearby Wilkes-Barre that drew some 10,000 people.

Although Hillary Clinton narrowly carried Lackawanna County, Mr. Trump cut deeply into the Democratic margin of more than 26,000 votes that Barack Obama piled up here in 2012.

Democrats have been arguing ever since about how to recapture those voters, mostly white and working class, and how much to focus on them. Mr. Biden, who is regarded warmly by many Pennsylvanians thanks to his history here, spent many minutes recounting family stories he has told regularly: his father moving alone to Delaware for a job but promising to send for the family when he could afford to; his father feeling ashamed when a bank turned him down for a loan to pay for his son’s college. His father telling young “Joey” that “the measure of success is not whether you get knocked down, it’s how quickly you get up.”

The split-screen moment in Pennsylvania comes after weeks of clashes between the Trump and Biden camps. In the last month, Mr. Biden has faced concerns from some Democrats over whether he was responding quickly and aggressively enough to Mr. Trump’s attacks. His campaign has settled on a strategy of frequently criticizing Mr. Trump and seeking to discredit his messages, while also focusing on policy matters — health care in particular.

Jim Connors, a former Democratic mayor of Scranton, who attended Mr. Biden’s speech, maintained that despite Mr. Trump’s 2016 strength in the region, disillusionment has set in with some who voted for him.

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