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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama told voters in Rhode Island on Thursday that Democrat policies that ease financial and other burdens on women will help make the economy stronger overall.
With four days remaining until Tuesday's national election, Obama was in the state as part of a campaign swing through six states to bolster Democrat governor candidates and push for greater turnout among party faithful, especially women, in a midterm election that could give Republicans control of the Senate.
Obama said that paid family leave is the law in Rhode Island, and policies like that make it possible for women to stay home with a sick child or parent without losing pay.
Noting that women make up about half of the U.S. workforce, Obama said women also need better child-care policies and equal pay for equal work.
Obama said his grandmother, a bank vice president, got passed over for promotions by people she had trained, and his mother raised him and his sister "without a lot of support."
"The idea that my daughters wouldn't have the same opportunities as somebody's sons, well that's unacceptable," he said.
Obama has stayed away from campaigning for Democrat congressional candidates who are trying to distance themselves from him and his slumping popularity.
But the elections feature races for governor in 36 states, outcomes that could play a major role in the choice of a presidential candidate two years hence.
In the Senate, Republicans need to pick up the six seats to capture the majority and are widely expected to expand their majority in the House of Representatives. That would give them control of Congress for the two years Obama has left in office.
Democrat candidates also are battling history which shows that the party that controls the White House in the sixth year of a two term presidency virtually always lose ground in Congress.
While Democrats dominate Rhode Island politics, their candidate for governor, Gina Raimondo has not gained a comfortable margin over Republican Allan Fung.
There also is anxiety among all Democrats in close races this year because their voters often do not go to the polls when there is no presidential contest. Obama has two years remaining in his second and final term.
On Wednesday Obama sought to mobilize Democratic voters in the race for governor in Maine while keeping his distance from the state's bubbling controversy over its Ebola quarantine policies and the nurse who has defied them.
Ebola has emerged as an issue in the Nov. 4 midterms, with Republicans criticizing the Obama administration for what they characterize as a disorganized response to the appearance of the virus in the U.S. Four people have been diagnosed with Ebola in the country, and one has died.
His appearance in Maine on Thursday landed him in the epicenter of a debate between the federal government and several states over how health care workers returning from Ebola-stricken nations should be monitored. The White House has pushed back against overly restrictive measures, including proposals for travel bans or isolation measures adopted by some states.
Obama has urged states to consider how their policies will affect the willingness of other doctors and nurses to volunteer for Ebola work in the afflicted nations of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Democrats in Maine hope the visit by Obama so close to Election Day would help put six-term congressman Mike Michaud over the top his close race against Republican Gov. Paul LePage.
LePage had defended his state's Ebola policies. He said Thursday that negotiations with Hickox's lawyers to discuss a scaled-down quarantine had gone nowhere, and that he was prepared to use the full extent of his authority to protect the public.
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