US President Joe Biden has postponed a trip to Colorado to stay in Washington and focus on the growing conflict in the Middle East.
Mr Biden had been heading to the Colorado congressional district of representative Lauren Boebert, where he was to visit CS wind, the world’s largest facility for wind tower manufacturing.
Instead, Mr Biden is expected to hold a series of high-level meetings with aides on Israel and growing humanitarian concerns in Gaza.
He is also weighing up a possible visit to the region in a powerful show of support for Israel following the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 30 US citizens.
The decision reflects the competing pressures for the president, heading into an election year in which he is trying to showcase his domestic agenda as conflicts abroad in Ukraine and now Israel grow.
Ms Boebert had described Mr Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, his signature domestic legislation and the source of hundreds of billions of dollars for clean energy incentives, as “a massive failure” that “needs to be repealed”.
But Mr Biden was planning to demonstrate otherwise when he visits CS Wind in the town of Pueblo. The company is undergoing a 200 million dollar (£164 million) expansion that is expected to create 850 jobs by 2026 with help from the tax incentives in the law.
Pueblo is one of the anchors of Colorado’s sprawling 3rd Congressional District, which covers more ground than Pennsylvania. Ms Boebert won her seat in 2020 and barely held on to it during the 2022 mid-terms.
There is maximum chaos in Congress right now for House Republicans, who ousted Kevin McCarthy of California as their speaker but have been unable to settle on a replacement.
Jim Jordan of Ohio, a prominent ally of Donald Trump, is the current leading candidate to replace McCarthy, but victory for him is uncertain.
Despite low unemployment and slowing inflation, Mr Biden has been struggling to convince Americans that his policies are good for the US economy.
An August poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said just 36% of US adults approve of Mr Biden’s handling of the economy, roughly where his numbers have stood for a year and a half.
The president and other top administration officials have been traveling the country to promote their Investing in America agenda.
