LAS VEGAS: President Joe Biden returns to the campaign on Tuesday in Nevada where he is going to address the NAACP national convention, a major rally of Black voters, in his first speech after a failed assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
After the shooting on Trump on Saturday, the Biden campaign immediately stopped television ads, called off verbal attacks on the former president and focused on unity.
Earlier, the campaign’s strategy was to criticize Trump, termed him as a threat to U.S. democracy and to expose his failure to admit his 2020 election loss.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the largest and oldest U.S. civil rights organization, is a key constituency for the Democratic Party. While Blacks supported Biden in 2020, polls have shown declining support for him among Black voters in the upcoming election.
Derrick Johnson, the NAACP president, told Reuters that he hopes Biden would present a plan to help Black Americans who are economically struggling and who are fearful that their rights are under threat.
“People are concerned about the price of gas, price of bread, but they’re also concerned with their growing knowledge around Project 2025,” Johnson said.
On Sunday, Biden at a formal setting of the White House Oval Office asked Americans to bring down the political temperature and recommit themselves to resolving their differences peacefully.
In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Biden said it was a mistake for him to use the term “bullseye” for Trump during the election campaign.
The president delayed a trip to Texas on Monday, where he was scheduled to speak on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.
White House officials are hopeful that Trump’s assassination attempt might lower pressure on Biden to quit as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
Biden on Wednesday is expected to speak to Latino leaders at the UnidosUS Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans gathered in Milwaukee for the party’s nominating convention on Monday with the selection of U.S. Senator J.D. Vance as Trump’s running mate.
