Biden signs wall of childhood home in Scranton

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday visited his childhood home in Scranton, Pa., signing the same living room wall he wrote on during his 2008 run alongside then-nominee Barack Obama. 

“From This House to the White House, with the Grace of God,” he wrote Tuesday, along with his name and the date, according to an image shared on Twitter by Axios reporter Alexi McCammond. 

McCammond also shared a photo of Biden signing the wall in 2008, when he wrote, “I Am Home.” 

NEW: A picture from Scranton. Joe Biden just signed this on the living room wall in his childhood home here. For context, he did this in the bedroom during the 2008 race. @axios pic.twitter.com/R9sKjG6Ktv

— Alexi McCammond (@alexi) November 3, 2020

According to reporters traveling with the former vice president, Biden stopped outside the home, where local resident Anne Kearns currently lives, before going inside with his granddaughters. 

“I watch you all the time,” Kearns reportedly told Biden outside during a brief public exchange. “I’m so proud of you.” 

A crowd of supporters lined the street and greeted the Democratic nominee as he arrived at the house Tuesday. 

“It’s good to be home!” Biden shouted at the crowd, which then erupted in cheers, with video footage catching one supporter shouting, “We love you, Joe!” 

Biden is also scheduled to visit Philadelphia Tuesday before making a national address from his current hometown of Wilmington, Del., where he will be joined by his wife, Jill Biden, vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff. 

Biden has repeatedly referenced his Scranton roots on the campaign trail, recently telling the USA Today Network Pennsylvania Capitol Bureau, “No matter where I’ve gone in life, I’ve always been led by the values that Scranton instilled in me at a young age — values of hard work, faith and a commitment to the middle-class.” 

Earlier Tuesday, Biden attended mass with his family at St. Joseph on the Brandywine in Wilmington before walking across the street to visit the burial site of his son Beau Biden, who died in 2015 of brain cancer. The family also visited the graves of Biden’s first wife and daughter, who were killed in a car crash in 1972.  

Both Biden’s and President Trump’s campaigns have put intense focus on Pennsylvania as a key battleground state this election, with recent polling showing Biden with a narrow lead. 

The final NBC News-Marist state polls of the presidential election released Monday found that Biden was ahead of Trump by 5 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 51 percent to 46 percent, although this lead was within the poll’s margin of error. 

The most recent polling average from RealClearPolitics has Biden with just a 1.2 percentage point lead over Trump, who won Pennsylvania in 2016 by less than 1 point over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.