WASHINGTON, Aug 30, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - US President Joe Biden will travel
three times over the next week to Pennsylvania, including for a speech in
Philadelphia Thursday on "the continued battle for the Soul of the Nation,"
the White House has said.

Biden is zeroing in on the northeastern state, where he was born, ahead of
midterm elections in November in which his Democratic party will fight to
keep control of Congress.

The 79-year-old is throwing himself into the political battle for all the
seats in the House of Representatives, and a third of the Senate. Both are
currently controlled by Democrats.

The outcome of the upcoming Senate election in Pennsylvania could single-
handedly decide whether the Democrats retain control of the upper chamber of
Congress for the next two years, or whether the Senate flips to the
Republican side.

Biden will go first to the city of Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, where the White
House says he will speak on his plan to reduce gun crime in the United
States.

Thursday is the big night: he will go to Philadelphia, the city considered
the birthplace of the modern United States, for a visit heavy on symbolism.

There, near where the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution
were written, he will deliver the primetime speech on the "battle for the
Soul of the Nation."

It's a continuing theme: Democrats have focused their midterm campaign on
defending societal gains and fighting for democracy itself against an
onslaught by Republicans who still support former US president Donald Trump's
false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

And Biden has regularly attacked the most radical conservatives, whom he
recently accused of adhering to "semi-fascism."

On Monday, September 5, Biden will travel to Pittsburgh, another Pennsylvania
city, to celebrate Labor Day.

He is expected to meet with Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman during
this trip.

Trump himself is expected to be in Wilkes-Barre on September 3 -- the same
place where Biden will be on Tuesday -- to support Fetterman's rival,
Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz.

The midterms are traditionally hard going for the party in power, and Biden
and the Democrats were struggling in the polls over the summer.

But in recent weeks, they have regained some ground, thanks in part to
factors such as public concern over access to abortion, a succession of
reforms pushed through Congress by Biden, and cooling inflation.

Trump's own legal problems have not hurt the Democratic push, with concerns
growing over documents recently seized from his home in Florida.