Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and wife Jill will visit Kenosha on Thursday and meet with Jacob Blake’s family, with the trip coming after President Donald Trump toured damage from the unrest in the city on Tuesday.
The campaign said Biden “will hold a community meeting in Kenosha to bring together Americans to heal and address the challenges we face. After, Vice President Biden and Dr. Biden will make a local stop.”
The Blake family have turned down overtures from the Trump White House to meet or to speak to the president. Trump rejected a Blake family request for a phone conversation because, Blake family attorney Ben Crump said, Trump did not want members of the family’s legal team on the call.
Biden’s meeting with the family, with roots in Chicago and Evanston, and visit is expected to dramatize his call to bring to the table all parties involved in policing issues.
Kenosha has been struggling with violence in the wake of the shooting of Blake multiple times in the back by a white Kenosha police officer. The situation was further inflamed when an Antioch teen, Kyle Rittenhouse, traveled to the city days after the shooting and was later charged with shooting to death two men and wounding a third with a rifle.
Biden’s Kenosha stop will be the first time he has visited Wisconsin during his presidential campaign and after he canceled the Democratic National Convention in-person activities in Milwaukee.
Wisconsin is a key swing state. Trump has been taunting Biden for ignoring Wisconsin, which Trump won by 22,000 votes in 2016.
This is also the first time Biden will be taking himself out of his carefully controlled COVID-19 bubble and represents moving up the timetable of when his campaign said he would be resuming campaign travel. The original plan was to have Biden hit the swing state road after Labor Day.
