The cabinet will join in the blitz as well, with the secretaries of the Treasury, interior, agriculture, labor, health and human services, education, energy and veterans affairs as well as various agency directors all taking to the road. The officials will talk about policy goals like protecting abortion rights and promote the administration’s accomplishments, such as strong job growth, rather than making formal campaign speeches, but it all fits into the broader effort. The president and his team got good news as they headed out when the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers had added 275,000 jobs last month.
Mr. Biden’s well-funded campaign announced that it would open the season with a $30 million advertising blitz. The campaign plans to hire 350 staff members and open 100 offices in battleground states over the next month, countering Democratic nervousness about its sluggish start.
After flying to Philadelphia on Friday, Mr. Biden stopped at a private home in Swarthmore to visit Jack and David Cunicelli, the owners of a local cafe. A member of their family is an old friend of Hunter Biden, the president’s son.
But one of the electoral challenges facing Mr. Biden as he seeks to reassemble his 2020 coalition manifested when he arrived at Strath Haven Middle School in Wallingford, where hundreds of protesters upset at his support for Israel’s war in Gaza were waiting. “Shame on you,” they chanted. They added, pointedly, “This November, we remember.”
Inside the gymnasium, Mr. Biden got a friendlier greeting from the crowd: “Four more years!”
Mr. Biden did not exhibit the same volume as he had the night before and stumbled over his words occasionally. But wearing a blue quarter-zip sweater and no tie, he appeared loose and in good spirits, engaging playfully with the crowd. At one point, he trotted out one of his regular lines, complaining that billionaires pay only 8 percent in taxes, a figure that fact checkers have said is misleading.