In order to drive to Licking County, Ohio, where he would speak at the opening of Intel’s new $20 billion semiconductor factory, President Joe Biden left the White House on Friday morning.
The president is doing a victory lap after guiding a bipartisan package through Congress to invest $52 billion in the American semiconductor sector in an effort to compete with China.
The corporation is anticipated to make a roughly $18 million investment in Ohio’s colleges and institutions to support workforce development as part of the president’s visit.
A senior administration official stated: “This includes working with community colleges around Ohio, the state’s oldest historically Black university, and other institutions to educate thousands of individuals to work in Ohio’s burgeoning semiconductor sector.”
To support similar initiatives around the nation, $100 million will be contributed by Intel and the National Science Foundation.
As the CHIPS law moved through Congress, the business began making financial investments in a location in Ohio.
The facility will be constructed by union workers, according to the White House, which will result in the creation of more than 7,000 construction jobs and 3,000 full-time semiconductor manufacturing positions.
The journey to Ohio takes place as the midterm election campaigning has begun in earnest.
While Ohio has recently been a favourable state for Republicans—former President Donald Trump defeated both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the state—this year’s Senate contest there is shockingly close.
Republican J.D. Vance, the author of the widely read Hillbilly Elegy, is being challenged by Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan.
In its polling index, FiveThirtyEight.com shows Ryan up by 1.9 percent, which is inside the margin of error for polls.
Ryan intends to go to the construction site.
But so does Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who is running for re-election against Nan Whaley, a Democrat.
Despite the former president’s early efforts to find a Republican to challenge the Ohio governor in a primary, DeWine recently earned Trump’s support.
DeWine congratulated Biden on winning the 2020 election while appearing on CNN, and he urged Trump to participate in a peaceful transfer of power.
Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel said in a statement that “Biden’s programme has devastated Ohio families and small companies” and that “Democrat Tim Ryan’s goal, apart from rubber-stamping Biden’s failing agenda, is outlawing gasoline-powered automobiles.” Ohio is prepared to elect a leader like J.D. Vance in November, and voters will make sure that Tim Ryan, a Biden-Democrat, is nowhere near the Senate.