Joe Biden snuggled up with some old neighbors and made a few other stops around town (Archive)
Scranton, United States:
Joe Biden likes to talk about growing up in the industrial city of Scranton, and when Americans voted Tuesday, the Democratic presidential candidate returned to his childhood home and signed his name on the wall to bring good luck.
“From this House to the White House with the Grace of God,” Biden wrote in black pen on a living room wall behind a picture, signing his name and adding the date, “3-11-2020.”
“Your pen to the ears of God,” wrote a Twitter user under a signed wall photograph taken by a reporter traveling with Biden as he courted votes in Pennsylvania on Election Day.
The intimate moment in the house was actually a replay of a moment in the 2008 election campaign when he signed a bedroom wall here during his second presidential bid, one that ended early but led to Barack Obama choosing him as a running mate for vice president. .
It has become something of a tradition for the 77-year-old, who served for more than three decades as a United States senator from neighboring Delaware, where the family moved when Biden was 10, to return to his roots. .
“We’re going home,” Biden, accompanied by two of his granddaughters, told reporters when he landed in Scranton for one of his final gestures in an 18-month presidential campaign odyssey.
The current owner of the house, Anne Kearns, didn’t seem to mind.
“I watch you all the time,” he told Biden during a brief exchange before welcoming him into the house. “I am so proud of you.”
Even when the coronavirus forced an end to the campaign as Americans knew it – face-to-face encounters, relentless handshakes, and rope selfies – Biden smelled that emotion on the street.
More than 100 neighbors, supporters and spectators, almost all masked, had gathered near the house with a gray awning and black shutters.
“It’s right there! Oh my God!” yelled first-time voter Mardan Daurilas, 19. “That is my future president.”
Biden snuggled up with some old neighbors and made a few other stops around town, including at the home of U.S. Senator Bob Casey’s mother and a local union office, before heading to Philadelphia for a final effort to get the vote.
The Democrat and President Donald Trump are bitterly contesting the changing state of Pennsylvania, which has become perhaps the pivotal battleground of the entire election.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
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