Joe Biden, the Democrat nominee, accused President Donald Trump on Monday of not wanting Americans, especially people of color, to vote in the upcoming general election.
Biden, who for weeks has argued a vote for the Democrat ticket is the only way to “end a presidency that has fanned the flames of racial hatred,” made the comments at a drive-in rally in a predominantly black community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the event, which was pitched by the Biden campaign as a last-minute get out the vote effort with leaders of the city’s black community, the former vice president told those in attendance “the power to change this country is in your hands.” Biden said:
I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries, there is nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting, no matter how hard he tries. There’s a press article last week and it read as follows, ‘never before in modern presidential history has a candidate been reliant on wide-scale efforts to repress the vote as Trump.’
“Trump doesn’t want y’all voting, he doesn’t want Americans voting,” Biden added. “He thinks only wealthy people should vote.”
The Democrat nominee added that voters should come out on Election Day and show that “we’re done with the chaos, we’re done with the racism, we’re done with the tweets, the anger, the hate, the failure, the irresponsibility.”
Since jumping into the 2020 race last year, Biden has attempted to paint the contest between himself and Trump as a “battle for the soul of the nation.” Such attempts, however, have been undercut by the former vice president’s own tumultuous history with the topic of race.
Polls taken throughout the general election have shown that Biden continuously lags behind prior Democrat nominees in terms of support from black voters.