Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden railed on Donald Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and promised to unite a divided nation during a campaign stop in Minnesota on Friday, part of a swing through critical Midwestern battleground states four days before the election.
The drive-in style rally at the State Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights was Biden's second visit to Minnesota in recent months, a state that hasn't voted for a Republican for president since 1972. While Biden said Friday he wasn't worried about his level of support in Minnesota, he also didn't take it for granted after Trump came within 44,000 votes of beating Hillary Clinton here four years ago.
Noting that he was 7 miles from where George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police in May, Biden disavowed the rioting and looting that destroyed businesses and property across the Twin Cities. But he said Floyd's name would "not be soon forgotten."
"We choose hope over fear. Unity over division. Science over fiction," Biden said. "And yes, truth over lies. So it's time to stand up and take back our democracy."
Polls have consistently shown Biden ahead of Trump in Minnesota, but Trump has campaigned in the state four times this year, holding a rally in Rochester just hours after Biden's address. It's the second time this cycle that both candidates campaigned in the state on the same day. Trump was also in Minnesota for a Bemidji rally in September, the same day Biden toured a labor facility and addressed supporters in Duluth.
It's a shift in strategy for Democrats in Minnesota, a state Hillary Clinton didn't visit in-person after she received the Democratic nomination four years ago.
Jogging up to the stage in his signature aviator sunglasses, Biden wore a mask but took it off at the start of the speech. At one point, he held it up and called it a "patriotic duty" to wear one during the pandemic.
Most of his roughly 20-minute address was focused on COVID-19 and health care. He criticized Trump for learning in January that the virus could spread through the air and withholding the information from the public. He said he would boost contact tracing and testing as president and listen to scientists.