Joe Biden campaigning in Pittsburgh on September 1, 2020. -
C. Kaster / AP / SIPA
He no longer wants to leave the monopoly of the land to Donald Trump.
Joe Biden will travel to Kenosha on Thursday, a town ravaged by riots since police seriously injured Jacob Blake, an African-American shot in the back in mid-August.
The Democratic candidate's team announced this trip on Wednesday, the day after a controversial visit by Donald Trump.
The former vice president "will lead a meeting in Kenosha to bring Americans together to heal their wounds and respond to the challenges we face," his campaign team said in a statement Wednesday.
His wife Jill Biden will also be on the trip and will make a “local stopover” with him in Wisconsin, which has not yet been specified.
A country under pressure
Wisconsin is expected to play a crucial role in the November 3 presidential election.
Donald Trump had created a surprise in 2016 by winning it narrowly.
The Republican president got ahead of Joe Biden by visiting Kenosha on Tuesday, against the advice of the Democratic mayor and governor who feared a new conflagration.
By hammering out his campaign slogan, reestablish "law and order", Donald Trump inspected the ruins of burnt businesses, thanked the police and likened to "domestic terrorism" the violent demonstrations that rocked the city, but without naming Jacob Blake.
The 29-year-old African-American was seriously injured from seven bullets fired at him at close range, in front of his children, during an arrest on August 23.
Hospitalized, he has the lower half of his body paralyzed.
The affair has rekindled the historic wave of anger against racism and police brutality in the United States, three months after the death of George Floyd.
Wisconsin, crucial state for the presidential election
Protests escalated into riots in Kenosha, with tension peaking on August 25 when a 17-year-old fired a semi-automatic rifle under unclear circumstances at three protesters, killing two.
His arrest the next day brought precarious calm to the small coastal town on Lake Michigan.
The Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton had been widely criticized for not having campaigned in Wisconsin in 2016. The Democrats had therefore decided this time to organize their nomination convention of Joe Biden in his largest city, Milwaukee.
But it was ultimately made entirely virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Along with Michigan and Minnesota, Wisconsin is one of those workers' states in the north of the United States where Joe Biden hopes to do better than Hillary Clinton, notably thanks to a better score with the white and affluent electorate of the suburbs.
It is in particular that this reason that Donald Trump poses as a candidate for law and order in the face of “rioters and anarchists”.
Support for protests fell sharply between June and the end of August, according to a survey by Marquette University, dropping from 61% of positive opinions to just 48%.
World
United States: Demonstrations, urban violence, armed militias… An explosive cocktail two months before the presidential election
Joe biden
United States
Police violence
US presidential election
Donald trump