Biden to campaign in Pennsylvania Monday, ask ‘are you safe in Donald Trump’s America?’

Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) will campaign in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday to deliver remarks that will serve as his first major campaign address following this month’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) and marks a return to the campaign trail after coronavirus shuttered in-person events months ago.

A speech Monday in the Pittsburgh area will focus on whether voters feel safe in the U.S. under President Trump’s administration, according to a news release Sunday evening from the Biden campaign.

“On Monday, August 31, Joe Biden will travel to southwestern Pennsylvania to lay out a core question voters face in this election: are you safe in Donald Trump’s America?” the press release states.

“COVID runs unchecked throughout the country, killing thousands of Americans a week and turning our economy upside down. Parents around the country are struggling to send their kids to school safely. And Donald Trump continues to fan the flames of division and encourage chaos in our cities, rather than trying to calm tensions and heal this country,” it continued, referring to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “On Monday, Joe Biden will offer a different vision for a better future in Joe Biden’s America.”

Though Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, has trained his fire on Trump for months since clinching the Democratic nomination earlier this year, the former vice president’s remarks Monday will serve as his first major address on the campaign trail since he appeared virtually at the DNC’s all-remote convention weeks ago.

Biden was forced off the campaign trail and away from in-person events as the coronavirus pandemic began to rage in March. He has stuck largely to virtual events most of the summer, with a few exceptions.

The Trump campaign has repeatedly hit him for not appearing in person and Biden’s campaign recently said they were preparing to resume campaign travel. 

Biden leads Trump in most national polls of the 2020 race, but the race has tightened in recent weeks and the two candidates were within single digits of each other in Pennsylvania in a poll released at the end of the Democrats’ convention.