Joe Biden was going to rally in Miami on the eve of the primary. He dialed in instead
Joe Biden was supposed to spend Monday night in Miami rallying voters to the polls on the eve of the Florida primary.
Instead, he dialed in from Delaware for a telephone town hall — and spent nearly as much time convincing voters that they should feel safe voting Tuesday as he did explaining why they should vote for him.
“I know this isn’t the way any of us would prefer to connect and engage, but I look forward to answering your questions,” Biden said, his voice crackling over a phone line. “I appreciate everyone bearing with us as we figure out all the logistics of campaigning in an entirely new way.”
On Tuesday, Arizona, Illinois, Ohio and Florida are set to hold primaries amid a global pandemic that has disrupted the presidential campaign just as it has most other aspects of American life. Former Vice President Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, both competing for the Democratic nomination for president, held “virtual” campaign events on the eve of a crucial primary date after pausing all normal campaigning due to concerns about the spread of novel coronavirus.
Sanders gathered supporters online Monday evening for a “digital rally” to watch him give his stump speech and see musicians perform on stage and in their homes. Shortly after, Biden’s campaign opened up a conference call to what it said were thousands of people across the four voting states, and gave five voters a chance to ask the frontrunner some questions.
A woman from Naples asked Biden what his campaign was doing to ensure voting remains safe, considering that President Donald Trump recommended Monday that people avoid gatherings of 10 or more people. Biden said he was listening to health experts and letting states make their own informed decisions.
“I don’t think it’s a decision for the candidates to make whether voters should vote,” he said.
Georgia, Louisiana and Kentucky have postponed their primaries, and Ohio’s governor pushed unsuccessfully Monday to have a judge postpone in-person voting in the state until June. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, said earlier Monday that Florida’s primary would go on Tuesday, arguing that to postpone the primary would send a signal of “panic.”
Florida election officials have said they don’t expect large crowds or lines Tuesday. Biden said voters should expect poll workers to wipe down equipment before and after use and told voters to stand six feet from other voters.
“I’m going to go with whatever the healthcare professionals think is best,” Biden said.
Biden also answered a question about gun safety, saying he believes the U.S. needs to adopt smart firearm technology that prevents anyone but an owner from firing a gun. Biden also talked at length about the ongoing federal response to the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus, and said in response to a question that he would consider closing travel to other countries, as Trump has done, in the case of an outbreak.
“If, in fact, it made sense to curtail any travel from the country from which it came, we would do it. But we would also be in contact with those leaders,” he said, arguing that Trump did too little to work with China when the outbreak first became a crisis in the Wuhan Province.
And Biden, in response to another question, said he plans to respond to Trump’s “lies” about him in the general election by focusing on his own platform.
“I’m not going to, as my mother would say, take any of his guff,” Biden said.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 10:01 PM.
