WILMINGTON, UNITED STATESJoe Biden travels on Thursday (Sept 3) to the Midwestern US city of Kenosha to meet the family of a black man shot by police, his first major trip since June as he intensifies his presidential campaign two months before the US election.
As the Democratic nominee visits the Wisconsin city at the heart of recent US protests against racism and police brutality, President Donald Trump barnstorms across battleground states, pitching his "law-and-order" message and attacking the integrity of mail-in voting.
The pandemic-induced lockdown has left Biden spending most of his time hunkered in his Wilmington, Delaware home or delivering nearby speeches to newsmen, but that slack period appears to be coming to an end.
With both candidates launching their two-month sprint to Election Day on Nov 3, Biden has announced his intention to return to the campaign trail in earnest for the first time since March, when in-person campaigning was scrapped due to the coronavirus.
Trump long ago threw caution to the wind. In recent weeks he has visited Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, New Hampshire and North Carolina, with a rally scheduled for Thursday evening in Pennsylvania, a major swing state.
Biden's trip to Wisconsin, which Trump narrowly flipped from Democrats in his improbable 2016 election victory, is a campaign call that also aims to help an embattled city "move forward" after days of violent and deadly unrest.
He'll no doubt aim to offer a contrasting vision to the law-and-order message that Trump delivered when he flew Tuesday to Kenosha to survey damage and meet with law enforcement and business owners.
"We've got to heal," Biden, 77, said Wednesday in Delaware.
"And so my purpose in going will be to do just that, to be a positive influence on what's going on."
Biden's campaign says he'll hold a community gathering and meet the family of Jacob Blake, the African-American man shot seven times in the back by a white officer on Aug 23.
It's not clear whether Biden will meet the 29-year-old himself, who is hospitalised and according to a family lawyer is likely paralysed from the waist down.
Trump did not meet Blake's family when he visited Kenosha in defiance of pleas by the mayor and state governor, both Democrats, who feared that his presence would stoke tensions.
'CAULDRON' FOR COVID?
Demonstrations in Kenosha began peacefully the night Blake was shot, but descended into violence for several nights running.
It culminated Aug 25 when two people were shot dead. A 17-year-old white Trump supporter has been arrested and charged with murder.
The president has refused to condemn the killings or the growing presence of armed vigilantes at protests, and during his visit he equated the demonstrations demanding racial justice with "domestic terror" by violent mobs.
Trump has accused Biden of tolerating the violence, forcing the Democrat to issue a condemnation during a Monday speech in Pittsburgh.
Biden leads Trump in national polling, but the gap is closer in swing states like Wisconsin.
Until now Biden has hesitated to hit the trail, rigorously adhering to local health guidelines and campaigning through webcasts, advertising and television.
"I would like to get out more, but I think a president has the responsibility to set examples," he said, by "not being a potential cauldron for significant outbreaks of Covid."
Trump by contrast has maintained a relentless in-person campaign schedule including a Wednesday trip to North Carolina.
He appeared to suggest that North Carolinians test the integrity of the voting system by casting mail-in ballots and then voting again at a polling station to ensure their vote is counted.
"So send it in early, and then go and vote," Trump said. "And if it's not tabulated, you vote, and the vote is going to count."
Deliberately voting twice is against the law and is a felony in several states, including North Carolina.
State and local officials say there is no evidence that mail-in voting is marred by major fraud.