United States President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama told voters in Pennsylvania on Saturday that democracy is at stake in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“The stakes are high,” Obama told a rally in Philadelphia held to support Democratic candidate for senate, John Fetterman and gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro.
The biggest names in US politics, including Biden and Barack Obama, as well as Republican former President Donald Trump, were in Pennsylvania on Saturday hoping to tip the balance in the pivotal Senate race between Democratic Lieutenant Governor Fetterman and Republican celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
“Democracy is literally on the ballot,” Biden said. “Today we face an inflection point. One of those moments, one of those moments that comes along every several generations.”
Biden went on to condemn the political violence, referring specifically to the attack last week on Democratic House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.
Republicans contend that Democrats have also engaged in political violence, citing the widespread anti-racism protests that rocked the country in 2020.
Trump, who sources say is preparing to launch a third consecutive run for the White House after the midterms, continues to falsely claim that his 2020 defeat by Biden was the result of widespread fraud. Multiple courts, state agencies and members of his own administration rejected that claim as untrue.
Still, opinion polls show a significant number of Republican voters accept the claim, as do many candidates for Congress, governor and state offices overseeing election administration.
Obama said that both Mehmet Oz and Shapiro’s opponent, Doug Mastriano, have not accepted the result of the 2020 presidential elections.
“I understand that democracy might not seem like a top priority right now, especially when you’re worrying about paying the bills,” Obama said.
“But when true democracy goes away, we’ve seen throughout history. we’ve seen around the world. when true democracy goes away, people get hurt. It has real consequences.”
Trump, meanwhile rallied for his handpicked Republican Senate nominee, Oz, and gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano at a rally in Latrobe, southeast of Pittsburgh.
The Fetterman-Oz Senate race is one of three critical contests, along with Georgia and Nevada, that will determine whether Democrats hold onto their razor-thin majority in the Senate.
Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls show Republicans are heavy favourites to win control of the House, with the Senate a toss-up. Control of even one would give Republicans the power to block Biden’s legislative agenda and launch potentially damaging investigations.
Fetterman held a commanding lead in the race throughout the summer, which Oz has whittled away in the last two months.
Some factors may be local: A stroke this spring forced Fetterman to scale back his campaign schedule and has affected his speech. At a debate last month, he often stumbled over his words, in a performance even allies privately described as shaky.
Fetterman tried again to allay concerns about his health on Saturday.
“This right now is what, that’s what five months of recovery looks like,” he said.
“And sometimes, sometimes I’m going to miss some things, some words. I might, I might mush two words together, but I’ll always make sure I make the right votes in Washington, D.C.”
Both parties have lavished attention on Pennsylvania both because of the strategic importance of the race and because of its voters’ history of swinging from one party to the other in the past four presidential elections.
But Oz’s gains also reflect a nationwide momentum shift in favor of Republicans, as voters’ focus on inflation and crime has proven more durable than concerns about abortion.
Democrats’ early lead in several other Senate races, including the contests in Georgia and Nevada, have also shrunk or evaporated completely in recent weeks.
