Kirsten Gillibrand is the latest 2020 presidential candidate to tour the battleground Midwest, in a swing aimed at highlighting what she describes as President Trump’s broken promises to voters.
The Democratic U.S. senator from New York is beginning her two-day bus tour Thursday in Pittsburgh and ending in Lansing, with two stops in Ohio along the way.
On Thursday Ms. Gillibrand will meet with elected officials and activists in Youngstown “to discuss outsourcing and layoffs experienced by the community,” her campaign said. Later in Cleveland, she’ll host a roundtable with retirees to discuss her plans to protect Social Security and “the harm the Trump administration has inflicted on seniors.”
On Friday the senator will be in Michigan attending a Bloomfield Hills town hall to discuss gun violence prevention.
Ms. Gillibrand’s campaign has yet to gain the momentum it needs to endure in the large Democratic field. Her appearance in the first round of debates did little to boost her weak standing in the polls.
“To beat President Trump, you have to have the courage and toughness to go toe-to-toe with him and call out his lies on the issues,” the senator said in a news release. “That’s what this tour is about.”
While the two dozen Democrats running for president are mostly focusing their attention on early primary states, Ms. Gillibrand is one of several to swing through the Midwest between stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont made a similar swing through the Midwest in April, telling supporters in Michigan that Mr. Trump lied to them in his 2016 bid for office.
“When he was running for president, the very biggest lie that he told here in Michigan, Wisconsin, and all over this country, was that he was going to stand with the working class of our country, that he was on their side, and that he would take on powerful special interests to take on working families,” Mr. Sanders said during a rally at Macomb Community College.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has also made several stops in Ohio and last month debuted a broad policy proposal for jump-starting manufacturing in Detroit.
First Published July 8, 2019, 3:52 p.m.
