Biden touts plan that ‘bets on the American worker’ and targets Trump in Minnesota stop

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Trump, Biden campaigning in Minnesota, where early voting begins

Former Vice President Joe Biden changes his position on wearing masks amid the coronavirus pandemic; Peter Doocy reports on the latest.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden spotlighted his blue collar roots and accused President Trump of “looking down” on working class people during a speech to a union crowd as he made his first visit to battleground Minnesota during the general election.

The former vice president also emphasized his plans to boost American manufacturing – saying his proposal “bets on the American worker” -- and repeated his vow that no one making under $400,000 per year “is going to pay a single penny more in taxes." He spoke after touring a union training hall in Hermantown, a suburb of northern Minnesota city of Duluth.

THE BATTLE FOR MINNESOTA: BIDEN AND TRUMP HOLD DUELING RALLIES

Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden arrives to tour the Jerry Alander Carpenter Training Center in Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, Minnesota, U.S., September 18, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RC271J9K4XJT

Biden’s Friday afternoon stop in Minnesota came hours before the president arrived in the state to hold a rally at the airport Bemidji, a small city in the northern part of the state. The visits came on a crucial day, as early in-person and absentee voting for the November 3 election got underway in Minnesota.

After narrowly losing the state four years ago to 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump’s aiming to become the first Republican to carry the state in a presidential election since Richard Nixon in 1972 – nearly a half century ago.

Biden stopped in a part of the state known as the Iron Range, which produces much of the nation’s steel. Trump has touted that the tariffs he’s slapped on overseas steel and aluminum have helped spike mining operations in the area.

Once a reliably blue region, Trump overperformed in the rural mining districts in the 2016 election. And the Iron Range’s congressional seat was one of the few to flip from blue to red in 2018, during a Democratic surge that helped the party reclaim the majority in the House for Representatives for the first time in eight years.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE IRON RANGE - A KEY REGION IN THE FIGHT FOR BATTLEGROUND MINNESOTA

Repeating a line from a CNN town hall from the previous night held in his native city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden said he views “this campaign as between Scranton and Park Avenue. All Trump sees from Park Avenue is Wall Street. That’s why the only metric of American prosperity for him is the value of the Dow Jones.”

And addressing the union crowd, Bided stressed that “like a lot of you I spent a lot of my life with guys like Donald Trump looking down on me, looking down on the people who make a living with their hands.”

Taking aim at the president’s repeated emphasis on the stock market as a barometer of the nation’s recovery from an economy flattened by the coronavirus pandemic and Trump insistence that “stocks are owned by everybody,” Biden asked “what the hell’s he talking about. People I grew up in Scranton, in Claymont (Delaware). They didn’t have money in stocks.”

Showcasing an economic plan he unveiled a couple of months ago, Biden said “I have a big ambitious plan that bets on the American worker. My plan’s going to create millions of good paying jobs, building the products and technologies that we need now and in the future. And it starts with a pretty basic idea – when the government spends taxpayers money, we should spend that money to buy American products made by American workers.”

And he pledged that “my plan would tighten the rules that would make buy American a reality.”

Biden also slammed Trump for promising but not delivering on an infrastructure deal.

“He had a plan in ’17, an infrastructure plan. ‘It’s coming.’ Then he had one in ’18. Then he had one in ’19. Then he has one for ’20 just like his non-existent health care plan that’s coming next week. He has no plan,” the former vice president charged.

A CLOSER LOOK AT BIDEN'S TAX PROPOSALS

On taxes, Biden also doubled downed in his argument that “you have nothing to worry about” if you make less than $400,000 per year.

Then he highlighted that “I’m not looking to punish anybody. But dammit it’s time for the super wealthy and corporate America start paying their fair share….so hard working families can start getting a break on child care, elder care, buying that first home, and the cost of education beyond high school. Being able to get started in life.”

The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have disputed Biden’s argument that nobody making less than $400,000 would see a tax increase and they target the former vice president for vowing to repeal the tax cuts passed by a GOP controlled Congress in 2017 and signed into law by the president.

While this is the first visit to Minnesota during the general election by either Biden or Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris, the Biden campaign has been carpeting the airwaves with TV commercials. The state is one of 10 battlegrounds where the Biden campaign is spending an eye-popping $65 million this week to run TV and digital ads.

The president trip to in Bemidji, a city that’s home to the fictional Paul Bunyon and which is closer to the Canadian border than to the metropolitan area of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, is his second to Minnesota in a month.

The president’s running mate, Vice President Mike Pence, will return to Minnesota next week, less than a month after he made a late August trip to Duluth to headline a “Workers for Trump” campaign event. During the stop, six local mayors from traditional Democratic strongholds backed Trump, arguing that Biden and the Democrats were out of touch with working-class voters in the Iron Range and small towns across America.

And ahead of Biden’s visit, the Trump campaign tweeted that “as Joe Biden Finally Shows Up in Minnesota, Three More Mayors From Historically Democrat Strongholds on the Iron Range Endorse President.”

Trump lost the state – and its 10 electoral votes – to Clinton by just under 45,000 votes, or less than 2 percentage points. For over a year, the president’s reelection team has been eying Minnesota, as well as Nevada and New Hampshire, two other states Trump narrowly last in 2016.

An average of the latest surveys compiled by Real Clear Politics shows Biden topping the president by a large 10.2 point margin. But both Republican and Democratic strategist based in Minnesota told Fox News that they believed the race was closer than the latest polling suggested.

Biden didn’t take questions following his speech, but did field at least one later from reporters. He make two quick stops in Duluth – at a coffee shop and a fire house, before heading home to Delaware.