TAMPA, Fla. — First lady Jill Biden echoed President Joe Biden on Monday in his the-discussion-is-over position that he would stay in the presidential race.

Bidens Head to Campaign

While Biden stared down his own party back in Washington and called into a preferred television show, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” to reiterate that he was staying in the race, Jill Biden said as much during a one day, three-state campaign swing in North Carolina, Florida and Georgia.

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“For all the talk out there about this race, Joe has made it clear that he’s all in,” Biden told a crowd at a brewery in Wilmington, North Carolina. “That’s the decision he’s made, and just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too. I know you are too or you wouldn’t be here today. And with four more years, Joe will continue to fight for you.”

Dr. Jill Biden Trying to Build Support

Her stops were officially about shoring up support for her husband among military families and tying it to Joining Forces, an initiative Jill Biden has championed since she was second lady in the Obama administration. But the whirlwind trip was just as much about reassuring shaken supporters of her husband that both Bidens were still campaigning to win.

Madeline Schildwachter, a 38-year-old grant writer whose husband had been sent on four combat deployments while in the Marines, walked away from the event with her hand on her chest and saying aloud to herself, “That felt good, we’re OK.”

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Schildwachter, who is a Biden supporter but not a campaign volunteer, said she had attended the first lady’s event solely to see for herself whether the Bidens were still in the race.

“I think that everybody needed a little dose of motivation,” she said. “So much is filtered through a media lens, but I do feel that Jill’s energy is different in person. You can feel what she meant.”

The Bidens still have an uphill battle in convincing those within his party whether the president, who is 81, is fit for a second term. In recent days, several House Democrats have called for Biden to step out of the race, and more were expected to do so as lawmakers returned to Washington from a summer recess.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Katie Rogers/Haiyun Jiang
c.2024 The New York Times Company