Two of Mr. Biden’s granddaughters have lived within the metropolis and attended the College of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia, which was additio
Two of Mr. Biden’s granddaughters have lived within the metropolis and attended the College of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia, which was additionally the alma mater of Mr. Biden’s son Beau, who died in 2015, and the president-elect’s daughter, Ashley, who reportedly nonetheless lived within the metropolis as of final month.
After Mr. Biden’s vice presidency, the college turned a key a part of his skilled base, establishing the Biden Middle for Diplomacy and International Engagement in Washington.
He was paid a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} as a professor by the college, and several other of his shut advisers, together with potential appointees within the nascent Biden administration, had been affiliated at numerous occasions with the middle. They embrace Steve Ricchetti, the Biden marketing campaign’s chairman and the president-elect’s former vice-presidential chief of employees, in addition to Brian McKeon, Colin Kahl, Michael Carpenter and Dan Erikson, former advisers to Mr. Biden.
When Mr. Biden started his presidential bid, he selected Philadelphia for the marketing campaign’s headquarters, in addition to his announcement speech and kickoff fund-raiser, which was held at a house within the metropolis’s leafy West Mount Ethereal neighborhood belonging to David L. Cohen, a senior govt at Comcast. Mr. Cohen, who can be the chairman of the board of trustees of the College of Pennsylvania, had participated within the ribbon-cutting for the Biden Middle.
Mr. Biden’s marketing campaign employees had numerous Philadelphia-area natives in distinguished roles, together with its nationwide political director, Erin Wilson.
To extend turnout within the metropolis, Democrats pulled out the entire stops. They known as in celeb reinforcements like Debra Messing and Kathy Najimy and despatched them knocking on doorways. They lined up John Legend to croon for a packed parking zone. And so they dispatched high political surrogates, together with former President Barack Obama and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, to marketing campaign within the metropolis.
Native Democrats augmented the trouble. Consultant Dwight Evans organized automobile caravans to snake via neighborhoods in his district, which incorporates components of North Philadelphia and West Philadelphia, honking at residents to remind them to vote. On Sunday, his caravan drove for 35 miles. Philadelphia stretches simply 15 miles north to south.