Jill Biden to visit Durham as November election approaches
First lady Jill Biden will speak in Durham on Wednesday as part of the White House initiative on women’s health research.
On Monday, President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at pushing women's health studies by bolstering data collection and increasing funding.
Jill Biden is expected to arrive at Raleigh-Durham International Airport around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. At 1:15 p.m., she's scheduled to deliver remarks on women’s health research in Durham. The exact location of her speech is expected to be released closer to her arrival.
Polling from WRAL in early March showed that for voters on either side of the aisle, health care is a top issue — particularly for women. More than 40% of all female voters listed health care as having the highest possible importance to them during this year's elections. Of 10 issues polled on, only the economy was seen as more pressing.
Jill Biden will also speak in Arlington, Virginia, on Wednesday morning at the Amazon Web Services IMAGINE Nonprofit conference to expand research on women's health.
President Biden is up for reelection in November. He's expected to face former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, in the November general election. The candidates and their surrogates are expected to ramp up visits to battleground states such as North Carolina, where voters are closely split ideologically.
Trump visited Greensboro ahead of the March 5 primary election, endorsing candidates in multiple GOP primaries. President Biden visited Raleigh in January, talking about his administration's economic efforts. Vice President Kamala Harris also came to Durham earlier in March.
President Biden and Harris are expected to visit the state again on March 26, kicking off their presidential campaign in the Tar Heel State with fellow Democratic politicians and insiders including Gov. Roy Cooper and Erskine Bowles, the former UNC System president who also served as Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff. It comes as North Carolina features to once again be a key swing state in the presidential election. Michael Whatley, the former head of the North Carolina Republican Party who now leads the national Republican Party, told WRAL in January that there's no realistic path to presidency for a Republican without winning North Carolina and its 16 votes in the Electoral College.
Tickets for the Biden-Harris fundraiser in Raleigh range from $3,300 to $100,000 per person. Proceeds will be split between the Biden-Harris campaign, the national Democratic Party and the various state Democratic parties. That joint fundraising PAC and Biden's campaign have so far raised more than $266 million combined for this year's election, federal election data shows. Likewise, Trump's campaign and two similar joint fundraising PACs have raised more than $154 million. Many other PACs, super PACs and similar groups are also expected to spend millions more trying to influence the presidential election.
Trump has a five-point lead over Biden, 50% to 45%, among likely voters in this key swing state, according to a recent WRAL News poll. Five percent of voters were undecided.
