Biden seeking to appeal to key constituencies with targeted policies

WASHINGTON — Last week, it was forgiving student loans. This week, it was calling for tariffs on Chinese steel. Soon, President Joe Biden is expected to protect federal land in the Alaskan wilderness.

As his reelection campaign heats up, Biden is leaning heavily on the powers of the presidency to try to shore up his support among key constituencies — young people, union workers and environmentalists — many of whom have expressed disappointment in his handling of the issues they care about.

It is a tactic often employed by previous sitting presidents, but one that is made more urgent for Biden by polls that show lagging support among several of the groups that helped him win the White House four years ago. Campaign aides say the rapid-fire string of announcements, which will continue, demonstrate that the president hears their concerns.

It is also part of the campaign’s broader strategy of trying to boil down the choice for voters to a simple one of governing versus chaos. The announcements by Biden are meant to draw a contrast with former President Donald Trump, who has spent most of this week sitting at the defendant’s table during the first of his four criminal trials.

“You’ve got a president who’s bringing people together to get things done, like relieve student loan debt, protect American manufacturing, lead on the world stage, while Donald Trump screams into an echo chamber of MAGA extremism on Truth Social,” said Michael Tyler, the communications director for Biden’s reelection campaign.

Republicans view the president’s spate of policy announcements as an effort to distract from what they consider the real issues of the campaign: immigration, inflation, taxes and what they insist is a weak foreign policy that has encouraged the country’s adversaries to act out.

In a statement, Trump’s campaign called Biden a “globalist shill for China” and accused him of making life worse, not better, for workers and families.

“Biden’s latest policy announcements are nothing more than last-minute attempts to save face with demographics of voters that he is bleeding support from six months ahead of the election,” said Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for the former president’s campaign.

Democrats are also focusing on issues with broader resonance, especially abortion rights and democracy. And although the president’s recent events have helped to focus attention on his promises to key constituencies, the gears of government often crank slowly and it is far from clear that the targeted policy actions will go into effect in time to help his campaign assuage the concerns among his voters.

The new student loan regulations that the president announced will not be finalized until just weeks before Election Day, and even then they are likely to be blocked by legal challenges that could last months or years.