NEW CASTLE, Del. — As President Joe Biden’s 50 years in elected office come to an end, he doesn’t seem content to quietly exit the political scene.

With Election Day a week away, Biden is intent on touting his administration’s record and proving that Americans should support Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats in the ballot box whether they want to or not.

Although many in his group seem to be avoiding him, he is determined to keep up his busy schedule throughout the final sprint until November 5th.

Biden told reporters on Monday that he had not campaigned alongside Harris since their joint Labor Day campaign in Pittsburgh and downplayed the fact that he had made little public campaign appearances with Democrats in competitive races.

“I’ve done a lot of deputy work, and the reality is I’ve also had to continue being president,” Biden told reporters after casting his early vote in his home state on Monday. in Delaware.

Biden said he and Harris still “talk all the time.” He added that he has made several visits to battleground states in his official capacity in recent months and plans to campaign more in Pennsylvania in the coming days, including his childhood hometown of Scranton.

Biden also plans to attend a campaign-related event with U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland on Tuesday, hold a series of campaign calls on Thursday and return to battleground Pennsylvania on Friday to highlight Democratic support for unions, officials said.

Biden said the Harris campaign wanted him to go “where they think I should be to help them the most.”

He had promised to campaign hard for Democrats after he left. But since he ended his reelection bid, few Democrats have invited him to campaign on their side.

The dynamic means the outgoing president must choose his place carefully as he tries to be a relevant voice in a chaotic political period.

Trump took to the social media platform on Monday to mock Harris and Democrats for keeping Biden at an arm’s length.

“Democrats have not only massively humiliated and embarrassed Crooked Joe Biden, they are now demanding that he be nowhere near Liar Kamala’s Campaign,” Trump said on Truth Social. “It’s not good enough that they took the Presidency away from him, just like you take away candy from a baby, but now they have to embarrass him even more by telling him to “GET LOST.”

Of course, not all Democrats are avoiding Biden.

Two Democratic Senate candidates, incumbent Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, campaigned with Biden this month. Both have deep ties to the president.

On Monday, Biden stopped at a breakfast spot near her home outside Wilmington with Rochester, a longtime ally who is running to become the first Black woman to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate.

The night before the breakfast, Blunt officially endorsed Rochester in a short video his campaign posted on social media. In his confirmation, Biden praised Blunt Rochester for being “Delaware through and through.”

The lawmaker, who has served in the House of Representatives for four terms, has known Biden for nearly 30 years and has strong support for him to win the seat in Democratic-majority Delaware.

Over the past few weeks, Biden has used campaign tours in friendly settings to troll Trump.

At a union hall in Pittsburgh on Saturday, Biden gave a mostly standard campaign speech before launching into a scathing attack on Trump supporter Elon Musk. She accused the billionaire tech mogul of working illegally when he first came to the United States to attend college.

“The richest man in the world is now her ally, right?” Biden said, referencing a recent Washington Post report that questioned Musk’s status as a student at Stanford University. As a student, “Well, while the richest man in the world was here, it turned out there was an illegal worker here”.

Musk, who was born in South Africa, denies the claim.

Last week, Biden borrowed some of Trump’s sharp rhetoric when he stopped by a campaign office in New Hampshire to meet with Democratic volunteers.

“We should lock him up,” Biden told the volunteers, then quickly changed his comment to indicate that he meant Democrats should “lock him up politically.”

Blunt Rochester joined Biden as he waited in line for about 40 minutes Monday at a busy early voting location not far from his home.

Biden was considering holding another election before deciding to end his campaign in July due to growing concerns from Democrats about his chances of defeating Trump.

While waiting in line to vote, she chatted with voters and helped push an elderly woman in a wheelchair in front of her. He gave his ID to an election official, who made him sign a form and announced: “Joseph Biden is voting now.”

Biden told reporters outside the polling place that the moment was more “sweet” than bitter. He expressed confidence when asked if he thought Democrats, including Harris, would win.

“I think we’ll do that,” he said.

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AP reporter Colleen Long in Washington contributed to the report.