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Meals at downtown restaurants. Philadelphia Phillies games at Citizens Bank Park. A stop at Pat’s King of Steaks for a “Wiz witout.”
The City of Brotherly Love has been a part of President Biden’s public identity for as long as he’s been in politics. As a senator from neighboring Delaware, he called Philadelphia leaders to collaborate on housing and labor initiatives. As vice president, he addressed graduates at the University of Pennsylvania and later attended his granddaughter Naomi Biden’s commencement there.
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As president, Biden had traveled to Philadelphia 18 times before this week, more than any other city outside Delaware — and he returned Monday to tout federal funds that will enable the Philadelphia Fire Department to reopen three fire companies. He also appeared at a fundraiser for his reelection campaign, where he noted he has been asking the city’s residents to help fund his campaigns for decades.
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“I want to thank you for allowing me to be able to compete in this election like you did my first time when I ran for the United States Senate,” Biden said at the the fundraiser. “I look at the phenomenal amount of money I raised — $69,000. Most of it raised here in Philadelphia.”
Biden has paid the next-most visits to New York City, with 11 trips.
He was born in Scranton, Pa., and “might as well have been Joey from South Philly” for much of his career, said T.J. Rooney, a former chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and onetime member of the state legislature. At this point, Rooney said, Philadelphia police can adjust rapidly and local union leaders can whip up an event whenever Biden announces a visit.
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“It’s hard to go to downtown L.A.; it’s hard to go to Manhattan,” Rooney said. “They’ve got it down to a science in Philadelphia.”
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Biden visits the other swing states — Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona — far less frequently. Often he seems to make a quick trip to Philly when he wants to schedule an event outside the Beltway without going too far.
The city, after all, is easy to get to from Washington, D.C., and is a stone’s throw from Wilmington, Del., where Biden maintains a home and often spends the weekend. It’s the site of the nation’s founding, with the historic backdrops that entails. It’s the most populous metro area in the most populous swing state.
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Biden also has influential political supporters there. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D), for example, plan to appear with Biden at Monday’s event to announce a grant for firefighters.
There is little dispute that Pennsylvania is politically crucial; only California, Texas, Florida and New York have more electoral votes, and none is a swing state. Former president Donald Trump eked out a win there in 2016, but Biden flipped it back after days of vote-counting in 2020.
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And by attracting coverage in Philadelphia news outlets, Biden can reach nearly half of Pennsylvanians.
“You have voters who are in the inner city, you have a big swath of working-class voters, you also have a big swath of suburban voters,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D), who represents about half of Philadelphia. “So the advantage of being on Philadelphia television is not just that you’re reaching a lot of people, but you’re also reaching a large cross-section of the electorate.”
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Brooke Goren, a spokeswoman for Biden’s 2024 campaign, said Philadelphia is central to her team’s work.
“Philadelphia is the birthplace of our democracy, home to every piece of the Biden-Harris coalition, and will be critical to the outcome of this election,” she said in a statement.
A spokesman for the White House declined to comment.
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The city has been the site of several crucial moments for Biden in recent years. He headquartered his 2020 campaign there, telling the crowd at his launch rally, “The reason we’re here is because, in a literal sense, this was the birthplace of our democracy.”
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Biden delivered a landmark speech on voting rights in Philadelphia before the 2022 midterms. In front of Independence Hall, illuminated in red and blue, he warned that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”
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At other events in the city, Biden has spoken about the economy, infrastructure and the coronavirus pandemic, among other topics. In 2021, he and first lady Jill Biden packed canned goods into boxes at the hunger-relief organization Philabundance on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
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But Biden’s links to Pennsylvania go back much further; his connection to the state inspired some to call him “Pennsylvania’s third senator” when he represented Delaware in Congress. In the early 2000s, Boyle said, Biden was “instrumental” in a controversial project to dredge the Delaware River as unions leaned on him in the absence of support from Pennsylvania’s Republican senators.
Biden also worked closely with Philadelphia’s then-Mayor John Street, said his son, Pennsylvania Democratic Party chair and state Sen. Sharif Street. He said Biden helped the city secure millions of dollars of federal funding for affordable housing in the early 2000s.
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Biden stayed close to Philadelphia after his time as vice president, serving as chairman of the National Constitution Center and launching the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania.
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“Every political person in Philadelphia, at least, has a Joe Biden story,” Street said.
Biden also has personal connections to the city. The first lady, who grew up there, has said their first date took place at a movie theater on Chestnut Street and a restaurant two blocks away. Jill Biden is also a devoted fan of the city’s sports teams; she greeted the Phillies’ mascot on the field last year and she once handled a coin toss for the Eagles.
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The president has dined in at least two Philadelphia restaurants since taking office — Parc, a Parisian-style bistro serving beef bourguignon and steak frites, and Vietnam Cafe, a family-run establishment in West Philly. His photo, local allies say, adorns the walls of many cheesesteak establishments.
Biden has referenced Philadelphia during some of his more lighthearted presidential events: The turkeys he pardoned ahead of this past Thanksgiving were named Liberty and Bell.
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While other presidents have been associated with specific places — George W. Bush had his Texas ranch and Ronald Reagan had his property in California — many have avoided urban associations because of the perception that cities are corrupt, said Guian McKee, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
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For “Amtrak Joe,” however, visiting the blue-collar city of Philadelphia can be a benefit — especially because it has a large African American population, a demographic that he needs to court, said McKee, the author of “The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia.”
He said visiting Philadelphia, which has been ravaged by deindustrialization, also enables Biden to argue that he’s attuned to the needs of Americans who are financially struggling.
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“Biden is dealing with the perception that the Democratic Party moved away from that working-class manufacturing base,” McKee said. “And by going to Philly, he says, ‘We haven’t forgotten those people.’”
Even as Biden’s poll numbers have fallen, Philadelphia residents greet him more enthusiastically than they do other high-profile Democrats, including Barack Obama, said Rep. Dwight Evans (D), whose district includes about half of Philadelphia.
“Somebody who is really connected into the element of Philadelphia — that’s Joe Biden,” Evans said. “He definitely is a Philadelphian at heart.”
Tyler Pager in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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