During a campaign rally in the key battleground state on Friday, President Biden pledged to Michigan voters that “we’re going to be OK,” but moments later mistakenly named a prominent Democratic congresswoman.
“I promise you, we’re going to be OK,” the 81-year-old president told supporters at a restaurant in Northville, Michigan, before heading to a huge rally in Detroit, where he stumbled while trying to address Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.).
“Congresswoman Debbie Haley,” Biden said, likely referring to Dingell, a five-term congresswoman.
“By the way, I want you to know that I spent a lot of time with Debbie,” he added. “She helped me a lot.”
Biden also noted that Dingell resembles his wife, Jill Biden.
“I forget which event it was, but someone said, ‘You’re his wife, aren’t you?'” Biden said, describing Dingell as “just like Jill.”
Biden did not correct the gaffe, instead acknowledging long after the incident that “I sometimes get names wrong.”
Many of the state’s political leaders Significantly absent From an election rally.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a co-chair of the Biden campaign and rumored to be a possible candidate to replace Biden, was out of state for the event.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), who is running for Michigan’s vacant Senate seat, also did not attend, nor did Sean Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union.
Also absent from the event was Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who earlier this week asserted that Biden could “absolutely” defeat former President Donald Trump in the November presidential election and expressed confidence Democrats could maintain their slim Senate majority.
Biden’s remarks, at Detroit’s Renaissance High School, the same venue where he pledged to be a “bridge” to a new generation of leadership during the 2020 campaign.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Biden told rallygoers amid growing calls from Democrats this week for him to end his reelection effort.
“I’m running and we’re going to win,” the president said.
Trump, 78, is leading Biden in Michigan by less than one percentage point, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls.
An Emerson College poll conducted after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with President Trump showed former President Biden leading the incumbent by one point, 45% to 44%.
Meanwhile, a post-debate Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll showed Biden leading by five points, 48% to 43%.
Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the Wolverine State by fewer than 11,000 votes in 2016, and Biden narrowly won the state in the 2020 election, 50.6% to 47.4%.
But Biden’s full support for Israel’s war against Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack alienated the state’s sizable and crucial Arab-American voting bloc.
In the Michigan Democratic primary in February, more than 100,000 people voted “indifferent” over Biden’s support for attacking Israel.
