Campaigning in California and New Mexico, Biden aims to ease voter anxieties
Joe Biden is hoping to help Democrats in California and New Mexico, while avoiding a repeat of the mess he helped create in 2008 when he led the Obama campaign’s aggressive efforts to win the state during the primary.
“I really hope this is a different campaign for the Democrats in 2020,” Biden said Saturday afternoon in his second appearance in the state in two days.
“I’m running because I think a lot the change that’s been needed for the party was the same changes that I wanted to see myself,” he said of his desire to be able to help Democrats in the state and avoid the mistakes of 2008.
California is Biden’s first campaign stop in the state since his wife, Jill Biden, announced plans to launch her own presidential run later this year. But he’s in the state for an unrelated reason, trying to ease voters’ concerns and rally Democrats in a state that he narrowly carried in last year’s presidential contest.
“California is going to have a very different conversation in the fall on how did we build a successful economy. Did we get a free lunch, did we miss the future and did we build it into something that we didn’t want?” Biden asked rhetorically. “No doubt about it.”
Biden, who is eyeing a 2020 run despite an increasingly crowded field, has made several stops in California — including in Sacramento, where he was greeted warmly at the Capitol building by state officials and constituents — but it’s his two weekend visits to the state that have put him in particularly good standing there.
He met Friday with a group of volunteers from the California Teachers Association who had come to Sacramento for the day, where he told them he’d be making appearances the next day in the Capitol and other places.
He also met Saturday morning with more California supporters