Biden plans Detroit visit to speak at NAACP dinner
WASHINGTON – Democratic President Joe Biden will return to Michigan this month to speak at the NAACP Detroit Branch’s 69th annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit, his campaign confirmed Wednesday.
The announcement came ahead of a planned Wednesday night campaign rally in Freeland, about 14 miles northwest of Saginaw, by former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
The NAACP’s annual dinner is scheduled for May 19 at Huntington Place, Detroit’s riverfront convention center.
It will be the Democratic president’s third campaign trip to Michigan this year and his first since March 14 when he made stops in Saginaw, a Democratic stronghold within a bellwether Michigan county, greeting volunteers at a private home in the city’s Cathedral District neighborhood before dining with a family at a golf course in Saginaw Township.
Biden was also in Michigan on Feb. 1 when he addressed a crowd of about 200 people at a United Auto Workers hall in Warren and courted Black voters at a sports bar in Harper Woods.
Biden’s speech to the NAACP in Detroit is part of his campaign’s efforts to engage Black voters in battleground Michigan, where turning out Black voters in Detroit and the first-ring suburbs is expected to be key to his running up the score against Trump.
The emphasis on Black voters is reflected in this upcoming and Biden’s recent trips to Wayne County and Saginaw County, which have the highest percentage of Black Americans in the state. Biden won each county by 78% and 84% of the vote, respectively, in 2020.
The campaign said it’s also been deploying surrogates in Michigan to speak to Black audiences and media about the administration’s achievements, including Ohio U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who have visited Detroit-area churches. Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu also campaigned with Black pastors and union workers in Flint Township in February.
Trump has also promised to court Black voters this cycle in cities like Detroit and Atlanta, with Republicans saying they see a chance for the former president to make a dent in Biden and Democrats’ historical advantages with voters of color.
Turnout among Black voters for Biden could taken on greater importance this fall because a number of Arab American and Muslim voters have said they could stay home or vote for other candidates if Biden doesn’t shift his policy on the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Biden easily won Michigan’s presidential primary in February with 81% of the vote, according to unofficial results, though about 13% or 101,600 people registered their protest of the president by voting “uncommitted.”
Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points 51%-48% in 2020 over Trump, and the race in the state is expected to be tight again in November.