Joe Biden, wearing a mask, makes first campaign stop in months

25 May 2020, 17:03 by Trevor Hunnicutt

New Castle, Delaware: Former vice president Joe Biden has made his first campaign trip outside his Delaware home since quarantining himself due to the coronavirus pandemic 10 weeks ago, visiting a nearby veteran's memorial to mark the US Memorial Day holiday.

Biden, the prospective Democratic presidential nominee, and his wife, Jill, both wearing black masks, laid a wreath of white roses at a memorial for veterans of World War II and the Korean War.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.141%2C$multiply_2.1164%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/641a3bb660294e1716735239b50fd8e79b97445c — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wore a mask as he laid a wreath on Memorial Day.AP

"It feels good to be out of my house," Biden told reporters, his speech slightly muffled by the mask. Maintaining his distance, he saluted about a dozen veterans and other onlookers standing a few metres away and thanked them for their service.

Biden has been holding campaign events ahead of the November election online from his house in Wilmington ever since much of the country was forced to stay largely at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

While President Donald Trump's activities have also been restricted, he has gradually left the confines of the White House in recent weeks to visit the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania in his presidential capacity.

Trump played golf on weekend for the first time since he declared a national emergency in March, drawing criticism from Biden and others as the US death toll from the virus neared 100,000.

"The presidency is about a lot more than tweeting from your golf cart," Biden posted on Twitter on Sunday.

Even as some of Biden's donors and supporters have fretted over his low profile, he has consistently kept an edge over Trump in national polls as the Republican President’s handling of the health crisis causes his public approval ratings to slip.

https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.203%2C$multiply_2.1164%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_62%2Cf_auto/5eb56feb1a2d0dd278962b26e063c5cb0584113c — Joe Biden and his wife Jill both wore masks at the Delaware Memorial Bridge park.AP

In an interview with WKOW-TV in Wisconsin broadcast on Sunday, Biden said being forced to campaign from home was working to his benefit.

"So far, the more he's out the more my poll numbers go up because of the things he says and does," he said, laughing.

Biden's last in-person event was a March 12 news conference in Wilmington and then a debate in a television studio in Washington D.C. on March 15.

His at-home campaigning has not gone without trouble. The Democrat blundered in an interview with a radio program on Friday, telling the host that black voters torn between voting for him and Trump "ain’t black." Biden apologised later in the day for being "cavalier."

The remarks sparked an uproar on social media, and the Trump campaign swiftly seized upon them as evidence Biden was taking the black vote for granted. African-Americans are a crucial constituency for Biden.

Trump also commemorated the Memorial Day holiday, laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and visiting a historic fort in Baltimore, Maryland.

Reuters