BOSTON — Help Raphael Warnock from afar: Check. Earn some union credibility: Also check.
President Joe Biden returned to Boston on Friday for a whirlwind afternoon that began with a Prince William meeting and ended with a fundraiser for the vulnerable Democratic senator ahead of Tuesday’s Georgia runoff election.
But it was the union-sponsored phone bank that underscored the dual purposes of Biden’s hastily thrown-together trip — finding a safe way to help Warnock and showing off his union support hours after he signed a controversial bill averting a freight rail workers’ strike.
A grinning Biden was met with a standing ovation and a “we love you, Joe” at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103 in Dorchester as photographers clicked away. A few union members wore “IBEW FOR JOE” t-shirts. A plastic bag full of buttons with Biden’s name on them sat on a table by the door.
President Joe Biden greets people as he visits a phone bank at International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 103, Dec. 2, 2022, in Boston.