Wisconsin Democrat Senate candidate says he skipped Biden Labor Day speech in favor of other events

Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes did not appear alongside President Joe Biden on Monday during a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee because he was engaged in other events honoring workers across the state, DailyMail.com has learned.

Barnes, who is currently serving as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, is running to unseat Republican Senator Ron Johnson in the November midterm races.

He’s the latest swing state Democrat to side-step a Biden visit despite a recent surge in the president’s job approval rating – that came after a controversial decision to wipe billions in federal student debt. 

Biden said at the outset of his remarks that Barnes ‘couldn’t be here’ but is ‘gonna be your next United States senator.’

‘The Lt. Governor appreciates the President coming to Wisconsin to honor the labor movement in our state,’ spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel told DailyMail.com when asked why Barnes was not present.

‘Mandela walked in the Milwaukee parade and then went to support Wisconsin workers at events across the state, including in Racine where UAW Local 180 has been on strike for over 100 days.’

A recent poll shows Barnes leading the incumbent Republican by seven points with roughly two months until the pivotal race.

Barnes eked out a slim 51-percent majority compared to Johnson’s 44 percent of support in Marquette University Law School’s late August survey. 

Wisconsin is one of two states the president is marking Labor Day in. He’s speaking in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania early this evening.  

Biden rolled out a new nickname for MAGA Republicans during his lively first speech – where he also walked back comments suggesting Donald Trump’s supporters believe in ‘semi-fascism.’ 

During his speech in Wisconsin on Monday, the president denounced the former president’s followers as ‘Trumpies’ and claimed politicians on the ‘extreme right’ of the GOP are ‘coming for your social security’ and destroying worker pensions.

At one point Biden was interrupted by a heckler – though he told Secret Service to ‘let him go.’

‘Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot,’ the president said to scattered laughter. 

And despite clarifying early on that ‘not every Republican is a MAGA Republican,’ he later painted the critic and his ilk as working to ‘destroy democracy.’

‘The biggest contrast from what MAGA Republicans, the extreme right…the Trumpies…is these MAGA Republicans in Congress are coming for your Social Security as well,’ Biden said.

The 79-year-old leader has ratcheted up his rhetoric against the former president and his allies in recent days, ever since making a fiery debut on the midterm campaign trail in Bethesda, Maryland late last month.

Biden made the first of two Labor Day stops in Wisconsin on Monday, where he touted his wins for workers’ unions and lashed out against ‘MAGA Republicans’

It was at a private event with donors there that the president compared MAGA Republican beliefs to semi-fascism, earning instant backlash from all factions on the right.

Walking those comments back on Monday, he said: ‘I want to be very clear up front. Not every Republican is a MAGA Republican. Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. I know, because I’ve been able to work with mainstream Republicans my whole career.’

‘But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards – full of anger, violence, hate and division,’ the president said. ‘But together, we can and must choose a different path: forward.’

Later, however, Biden turned up the heat again as the heckler who interrupted his speech was being pulled out by security. 

‘Democrats, Republicans and mainstream – Republicans and independents, we have to be stronger and more determined and more committed to saving American democracy,’ the president implored above the commotion. 

‘And the MAGA Republicans – that guy out that door- are destroying democracy. Because democracy is at stake.’

At one point a man in a suit heckled the president’s speech. It’s not clear what the man was shouting

Biden called the critic an ‘idiot’ and told security who were escorting him out to ‘let him go’

The man, wearing an American flag pin, was called a ‘MAGA Republican’ by the president

The president was impassioned as he repeatedly drummed Republican lawmakers – including Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson – for voting against his agenda, including the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal.

He also attacked the GOP for opposition to the Butch Lewis Act, a provision in the COVID-19 pandemic-era American Rescue Plan that protected the pensions of roughly 10 million union workers. 

Biden claimed that Republicans who supported the bill voted against it over re-election concerns. 

‘Not a single Republican congressman voted to protect your pensions – not one. And by the way, I know a lot wanted to vote for it. They’re afraid of losing primaries in this new Republican Party,’ he said.

Touting the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act – a climate and healthcare spending bill that passed without any Republican support – Biden thundered: ‘We beat pharma this year, and it mattered. We finally beat Pharma.’