PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — President Joe Biden will try to turn Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado into the embodiment of Republican opposition to his agenda as he visits her congressional district on Wednesday.
The trip comes as Biden struggles with low approval ratings while he prepares for a likely 2024 rematch against former President Donald Trump, leaving Democrats eager for opportunities to score political points against Republicans.
Biden plans to tour CS Wind, the world’s largest facility for wind tower manufacturing, in Pueblo. The trip was originally scheduled for last month, but it was delayed as the Democratic president focused on the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas.
CS Wind is undergoing a $200 million expansion that is expected to create 850 jobs by 2026 with help from the tax benefits in the Inflation Reduction Act, which included hundreds of billions of dollars of financial incentives.
In addition, a new analysis from the Treasury Department said clean energy investments have mostly flowed to communities with below-average wages and above-average child poverty. The White House said the data indicates that Biden's policies are expanding economic opportunity.
Boebert, who has cultivated a national reputation as a far-right insurgent, has called the Inflation Reduction Act “a massive failure” that “needs to be repealed." She also described the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted in 2021 as “garbage” and “wasteful.”
According to the White House, the law has contributed roughly $190 million toward street and water infrastructure improvements in Boebert’s area of Colorado.
On Wednesday, Boebert issued a statement saying “high prices are squeezing working-class Coloradans and rural America,” and she said Biden “continues to pander to radical extremists” with his environmental policies.
The White House, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, said Biden would speak about his administration’s progress on clean energy and “how self-described MAGA Republicans like Representative Lauren Boebert are threatening those investments, jobs, and opportunities.”
Pueblo, a city of about 110,000 residents south of Denver, is one of the anchors of Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District, which covers more ground than Pennsylvania. Boebert won her seat in 2020 and barely held on to it during the 2022 midterms. Democrats are eyeing it as one of their top pickup opportunities as they aim to retake control of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans.
Boebert recently suffered an embarrassing episode when she was kicked out of a musical production of “Beetlejuice,” where she was spotted vaping and groping with a date. Now she faces a difficult reelection campaign and a likely rematch against Democratic candidate Adam Frisch.
Biden arrived in Colorado on Tuesday after attending a memorial service in Atlanta for Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady and wife of former President Jimmy Carter. He spoke at a Tuesday night fundraiser in Denver, where he said Trump and Republicans wanted to abandon his administration's efforts.
“We’re now investing in America,” Biden said.
Biden in recent weeks has been taking an increasingly confrontational stance toward Republicans. For example, during a White House event focused on supply chains on Monday, he unleashed a broader critique of Republicans for trying “to undo this progress we're making.”
“They want to go back to the bad old days, when corporations looked around the world to find the cheapest labor they could find, to send the jobs overseas, and then import the products back to the United States,” he said.
Biden also said Republicans want to cut Social Security and Medicare, benefits that are crucial for many elderly Americans.
“They just don’t give up," he said. "But guess what: We won’t let these things happen.”
Biden was originally scheduled to visit Pueblo on Oct. 16, but the trip was postponed so he could remain in Washington to focus on the conflict in the Middle East. Two days later he went on a last-minute trip to Israel to show support for the country after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.
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Megerian reported from Washington.
