ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been floated as a potential backup Democratic presidential candidate, will campaign with President Joe Biden in Michigan and Pennsylvania this week, Team Biden announced on Wednesday.
Newsom will first travel to Van Buren County, Michigan, for an Independence Day event on Thursday, according to Bridge Michigan reporter Simon D. Schuster. The California governor will stay on the campaign trail with the president, traveling to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally focused on “slamming Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy and embrace of political violence,” the Biden campaign said.
Both Michigan and Pennsylvania are major battleground states that currently lean toward former President Donald Trump in most polls. Trump won both states over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 before Biden beat Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania in 2020.
While Newsom has been mentioned as a possible replacement for the 81-year-old Biden atop the 2024 ticket following the president’s disastrous debate performance, the California governor has publicly remained an ardent supporter of Biden during his re-election campaign. Both Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro have also been suggested as possible presidential candidates if Biden were to drop out.
Earlier this week, Whitmer pushed back on a report claiming she told Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon that Michigan was unwinnable for Biden following the debate. Whitmer denied the POLITICO report, saying, “I am proud to support Joe Biden as our nominee and I am behind him 100% in the fight to defeat Donald Trump.”
Shapiro also emphasized his continued support for Biden’s re-election campaign, saying earlier this week, “Joe Biden is up to the job.”
“He had a bad debate,” Shapiro said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Donald Trump was a bad president who drove our economy into the ditch and who exasperated false claims about climate change and who lied about his past and the kinds of things he’s proposing for the future. There is still a clear contrast between the two candidates and the debate did not change that.”
Newsom is also traveling to the White House on Wednesday to “stand with” Biden, along with multiple other Democratic governors who requested to meet with the president. Newsom was in the CNN debate spin room in Atlanta for Biden’s debate to help the president and his campaign with messaging.
“I will never turn my back on President Biden, and I don’t know a Democrat in my party that would do so,” Newsom told reporters after the debate. “And especially after tonight, we have his back.”
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