Biden takes nostalgic journey amid search for votes

As he prepared to address the nation in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday night, the 77-year-old former vice president sought to crystallize the choice between voting for him and voting for President Donald Trump in the most crucial swing state on the map, wagering that another visit could give him an edge in a competitive landscape.

"Everybody knows who Donald Trump is," Biden said in Philadelphia, echoing the themes he has emphasized throughout his third run for the White House. "He needs to know who we are. We choose hope over fear. We choose truth over lies. And we choose science over fiction."

Biden carried with him the hopes of millions of Americans who seeking put an end to the chaotic Trump presidency. Once seen as a gaffe-prone and past-his-prime politician whose place in his own rapidly changing party was uncertain, Biden's brand of moderation and espousal of unity earned him the trust of an anti-Trump coalition that prized electability above all else. But in a sharply divided country he also stood as the source of great disdain for millions of others determined to propel Trump to a second term.

The most consequential day of Biden's decades-long political career hit many personal notes. As the sun rose over Wilmington, Biden attended Mass and visited the cemetery where his first wife and two of his children are buried. Then he flew to Scranton, where he stopped by the house he lived in as a child.

"It's good to be home," Biden said, greeting a few dozen supporters outside a local carpenters union hall. He told them he had won the handful of votes in the famed New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, where polls open just after midnight. "Based on Trump's notion, I'm going to declare victory tonight," Biden quipped, drawing laughs from the crowd.

But with Trump and his allies raising baseless concerns about fraud in mail-in voting and vote counting, Biden campaign officials were taking seriously the possibility that Trump might offer a misleading portrayal of the election results.

Asked whether he will respond if Trump claims victory prematurely, Biden insisted that voters would determine the outcome.

"Presidents don't decide what votes are counted and not counted," he said. "Voters determine who's president. No matter what he does, no matter what he says, the votes are going to be counted."

Biden campaign adviser Bob Bauer called GOP voting lawsuits "patently failing" and "meritless" and said they were "designed to generate the appearance of a cloud over the election."

Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes stood perhaps the most coveted prize on Tuesday, though many observers did not expect a winner to be declared there right away, due to the ongoing tally of mail-in ballots that arrived in large numbers from voters concerned about showing up to the polls during a pandemic.

Both candidates spent much of their time in Pennsylvania during the closing days of the campaign, a reflection of its influence in the race to 270 electoral votes. Trump won Pennsylvania by less than a percentage point in 2016, and this year's pre-Election Day polls showed a close contest there. Although Biden nominally led, Democrats had been nervous about his standing in Pennsylvania as the race neared the finish line.

"Pennsylvania's going to pick the president," said Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat supporting Biden. Like many Pennsylvania Democrats, Fetterman was concerned about the prospect of high turnout among Trump supporters in White, rural counties across the state, similar to those who had pushed him over the top in 2016.

Final public polling showed Biden leading in most key battlegrounds. His campaign officials were upbeat Tuesday, voicing confidence that anger with Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic was the dominant topic on the minds of voters and the one that would help propel Biden to the presidency. They said they had several ways to win, both with and without Pennsylvania.

"When we look to today, we feel like it is clear that we are winning," said Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon. "All the data that we're looking at really underscores how many pathways believe we have to victory and how few Trump has."

Across the country, Biden's allies were also sounding cheery. In Michigan, where Trump won narrowly in 2016, Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., said voting was smooth at local polling places and Democratic enthusiasm was high.

"I'm like a 10-year-old kid about to walk into a huge room of presents or something," Levin said excitedly in an afternoon phone interview. Levin, who represents a district in the suburbs of Detroit that incudes a county that flipped from President Barack Obama to Trump, added that "2020 is going to take its place along with 1932 and 1980 as a very rare moment when our country changes directions in a fundamental way."

Biden, too, was upbeat as he whisked around his nostalgic tour of Pennsylvania. Before stepping into his childhood home in Scranton, he pointed to an older woman standing across the street. "She's lived there since I was a kid!" he exclaimed.

Once inside the home, where a supporter named Anne Kearns now lives, Biden wrote a message on a living room wall: "From this house to the White House with the grace of God. Joe Biden 11-3-2020." He had signed a bedroom wall when he ran for vice president in 2008.

The visit stirred excitement in the neighborhood. "He's right there!" blurted out Mardan Daurilas, 19, a first-time voter who said he cast his ballot for Biden on Friday. More than a hundred people lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the Democratic nominee.

For a candidate who has limited his public appearances down the stretch compared with Trump, the stop in Scranton was reminiscent of pre-pandemic appearances Biden frequently made. But there were still blunt reminders of the coronavirus and its resurgence across the country. Biden wore a mask as he spoke. And the hugs and high-fives that were staples of Biden's earlier campaigning were replaced by elbow bumps, in accordance with medical guidance during the pandemic.

Biden's campaign aides have embraced the visible contrast the Democrat has struck with Trump, trumpeting his mask use and social distancing as proof to voters that as president he would be much more responsible about combating the virus than the Republican has been. Trump has frequently disregarded the advice of experts and continues to hold crowded political events in defiance of their guidelines.

At an afternoon restaurant stop in Philadelphia where Biden made a pitch to a crowd dominated by Black voters, some greeted the Democrat as "President Biden" and asked him to come closer to them.

"They won't let me!" he said, staying at least 30 feet from the crowd.

"You're your own man! Come over here and shake my hand!" one woman said to him, prompting some laughter in the crowd.

While in Philadelphia, Biden sat for a round of remote TV interviews with outlets in various swing states and greeted more than 100 supporters at a canvass kickoff.

"Turnout's been incredible," he told them. "Look: The country is ready. We're going to have more people come this year than any time in American history," he predicted.

He added, "I wont let you down."

Biden received plenty of visible and vocal encouragement during his last day on the trail, which included some emotionally charged moments. At one point, a supporter asked him whether he would call a family friend dying of cancer.

But the reminders of the opposition he faced were also there. At a hoagie shop, a man in a red Trump 2020 hat was nearby.

A reporter asked Biden on Tuesday morning whether he had spoken with Trump.

"No, I haven't," Biden said.