RALEIGH, N.C. — President Joe Biden visited Raleigh-Durham on Thursday where he unveiled $82 million for North Carolina to help connect an additional 16,000 households and businesses to high-speed internet..
He highlighted how over $3 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and American Rescue Plan funding is helping North Carolina, saying his policies are “just getting started” at improving the U.S. economy. He visited the Abbott's Creek Community Center in Raleigh to announce over $82 million in new investments from the American Rescue Plan's capital projects fund to connect an additional 16,000 North Carolina homes and businesses to high-speed internet.
It's all part of the White House's Investing in America agenda. Additionally, he discussed how his "Bidenomics" will support a boom in small business and create jobs.
“What we’re doing here in North Carolina is one piece of a much bigger story," he said. He said he was keeping his promise to be a president for all America, whether you voted for me or not."
Biden talked about all the people who need high-speed internet because they work from home, businesses who need it to reach customers and students who need to do their school work.
“High-speed internet isn't a luxury anymore. It's an absolute necessity,” he said in Raleigh, the state capital. “The investment in high-speed internet means something else as well: good-paying jobs.”
His visit comes a week after Vice President Kamala Harris visited Charlotte's Eastway Middle School, announcing that North Carolina will receive $12 million from the federal government to hire 332 mental health counselors in schools statewide as part of the White House's efforts to support children amid gun violence. Harris has visited North Carolina 11 times during her time as vice president. She was previously in the state in September 2023 when she visited Greensboro. Harris was last in Charlotte in June 2023 to mark the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Biden's travel on Thursday is just days after the Iowa caucus, in which Republican opponent former President Donald Trump won in a landslide, setting himself up as the strong front-running for the Republican nomination, which could lead to a potential rematch between Trump and Biden this presidential election in November.
Biden’s reelection campaign has made winning North Carolina and its 16 electoral votes a top priority in this year's presidential election. Trump won North Carolina in 2016 and in 2020. North Carolina's primary election isn't until March 5, where Biden should be the only Democrat on the presidential ballot. Fast-growing North Carolina is considered a presidential battleground, but only twice in the last 40-plus years has a Democrat won the state’s electoral votes: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008.
Biden, the Democratic incumbent who is campaigning to win a second term, coupled his economic message with a few jabs at his predecessor, Donald Trump, currently the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination and his most likely future challenger.
Biden brought up Trump's recent comment that he hoped the economy would crash soon because he doesn't want to preside over job losses if he were to be reelected in November. Biden told his audience that Trump already was like Herbert Hoover, who held office during the 1929 stock market crash.
“He’s the only president to be president for four years and lose jobs,” Biden said of Trump.
Republicans hold narrow veto-proof control of the state Legislature and a majority on the state Supreme Court. But voters still appear comfortable with a Democratic state chief executive who attempts to counteract GOP policies, which recently have included more abortion restrictions and expanded private school vouchers. Democrats have held the governorship for all but four years since 1993.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is term-limited from running this year, spoke before Biden on Thursday, boosting Biden and criticizing Trump.
“I want a president who wakes up every morning thinking about the American people instead of a president who wakes up every morning thinking about himself,” Cooper said.
Polling shows that the economy has been a weakness for Biden, a reflection of inflation hitting a four-decade high in June 2022. Easing inflation rates since then have yet to pull Biden's approval ratings back to their levels at the start of his presidency. The president has tried to empathize with voters grappling with higher inflation, but he has stressed that his policies are fostering the creation of factory and construction jobs with middle-class wages.
“When jobs grow, everything grows,” Biden said as he ticked through federal spending on projects made possible by his pandemic aid package and an infrastructure law.
The administration is committing a total of $3 billion to build and fund internet connections in North Carolina. The administration estimates that an additional 300,000 state residents will be able to access the internet by the end of 2026.
One way the administration says it has lowered costs for families is by providing discounted internet service to 880,000 households in North Carolina. But the administration is calling on Congress to renew the Affordable Connectivity Program, a separate source of funding that is set to run out of money in April. The program has helped 22 million people save $30 to $75 a month on their internet bills, the administration says.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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