Detroit Mayor Calls Biden ‘Great Friend’ of the City
Joe Biden makes his biggest pitch to voters to date when he accepts the nomination tonight at the virtual Democratic National Convention. Biden is counting on Blacks and blue collar workers in areas like Metro Detroit to help flip battleground states.
It’s hard to call it a “coming out” party for Biden, since he’s been campaigning for roughly a year and in political life for decades.
The newly-christened Biden-Harris ticket is expected to be a strong draw for African American voters, though some progressives still bemoan the pair for pursuing policies they see as too mainstream.
Biden needs to excite that electorate. There was a lackluster voter turnout in Detroit during the 2016 presidential election. And thousands of other Democrats in the Metro region simply did not vote at all.
Yet as Vice President, nowhere was Biden’s presence felt more outside Washington, D.C. than in Detroit.
“He always cared. There was no reason for him to be so engaged…President Obama said ‘Joe’s problem is he thinks he’s the Vice President of Detroit.’“ – Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan
Biden helped the Obama Administration provide a financial bail-out for the U.S. auto industry and offered assistance as Detroit went through what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan worked with Biden during those tumultuous times.
Duggan, who is also a Democratic convention delegate, says he believes Biden is someone Detroit, the state and the country can work with far better than a Trump Administration he calls unpredictable and tone-deaf.
