President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump campaigned on opposite sides of Pennsylvania on Saturday, offering a preview of their potential 2024 rematch as they made a final push for their parties’ respective Senate and gubernatorial candidates in a key 2022 battleground.

The Commonwealth, which offers Democrats their best chance of picking up a seat that could help them maintain control of the US Senate, pivoted from backing Trump in 2016, to Biden in 2020. But anger about inflation, coupled with voters’ economic uncertainty across the nation, has created an even more challenging climate for Democrats facing tough historical odds this year since the party in the White House often faces steep congressional losses in the first midterm of a new administration.

Democrats – including Biden and former President Barack Obama, who joined him on the trail in Philadelphia on Saturday – are closing out the campaign by arguing Republicans have no plans to ease the brunt of inflation, claiming they could jeopardize Social Security and Medicare, as well as the basic tenants of democracy because of their blind loyalty to Trump.

Biden’s approval ratings are underwater, which has meant that Pennsylvania is one of the rare spots where the Scranton native has appeared with a Senate candidate in a closely contested race. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running against Trump’s hand-picked candidate in Mehmet Oz, is trying to win the Senate seat being vacated by GOP Sen. Pat Toomey. Democrats, who control the 50-50 Senate because of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, are struggling to defend seats in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona. Republicans need a net gain of just one seat to win the majority, so Democrats are hoping a Pennsylvania victory could mitigate any losses on their side in those other states.

After strolling on stage with Obama, Biden needled his former – and possibly future – rival by telling the boisterous crowd they could be heard all the way over in Latrobe, where Trump was appearing two hours later with Oz and GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, an election denier who was at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“Your right to choose is on the ballot. Your right to vote is on the ballot. Social Security and Medicare is in the ballot,” Biden said at the Liacouras Center on Temple University’s campus in North Philadelphia.

He noted that his objective when he ran for president was “to build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” which he described as a “fundamental shift, compared to Oz and the mega MAGA Republican trickledown economics.”

“This ain’t your father’s Republican Party,” the president added. “This is a different breed of cat. I really mean it. Look, they’re all about the wealthier getting wealthy. And the wealthier staying wealthy. The middle class gets stiffed. The poor get poorer under their policy.”

Appearing after Biden, Fetterman called out Oz for appearing with Trump on a rally stage – “a true exercise in moderation,” he scoffed – as he sought to remind Pennsylvanians of how Trump stirred up the conspiracy theories that incited the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

He added that “inflation has hurt working families in Pennsylvania, but you need a senator that really understands what that really means,” pointing to Oz’s wealth to argue that he’s unfamiliar with the pain of higher prices.