Biden to Campaign for Terry McAuliffe in Virginia

Politics|Biden will head to Virginia to campaign for Terry McAuliffe, his first foray on the campaign trail as president.

• July 23, 2021, 12:12 p.m. ET

President Biden will join former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is seeking to regain his old job in November, for an event on Friday in Northern Virginia, marking Mr. Biden’s first return to the campaign trail since he entered the White House.

Mr. Biden is set to speak at the campaign event for Mr. McAuliffe in a park in Arlington, a short drive from Washington, on Friday evening.

Mr. McAuliffe easily won the Democratic nomination for the Virginia governor’s race in June, hoping to return to the office four years after he served his term. The state does not permit governors to run for consecutive terms. Mr. Biden won Virginia handily last year on his way to the White House, but some Democrats are worried about Mr. McAuliffe’s prospects this year against Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer and former private equity executive who is the Republican nominee and who has the ability to spend millions of dollars from his own bank account to help make the race competitive.

Mr. McAuliffe, who mulled a presidential run in 2020 but passed and endorsed Mr. Biden, has sought to make the race a referendum on former President Donald J. Trump, who has backed Mr. Youngkin enthusiastically. Mr. Trump remains popular with Republicans in the state’s rural areas but has alienated moderates in the Washington suburbs.

Mr. McAuliffe has sought to tether Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, joking that he would pay for the fuel for Mr. Trump to visit the state and campaign for Mr. Youngkin. And the former governor has embraced Mr. Biden, expressing hope that the president will campaign for him multiple times before November.

Ahead of the visit, the White House released a background sheet to reporters that touted the nearly $10 billion in fiscal relief for state and local governments and school districts in Virginia under the $1.9 trillion economic relief bill Mr. Biden signed into law in March, along with signs of progress for the state economy in its rebound from the pandemic recession.