Vice presidential candidate Joe Biden plans a campaign stop in Columbia tomorrow.

Biden will hold a town hall meeting at the Activity & Recreation Center, 1701 W. Ash St. The 9:30 a.m. event is open to the public, but admission requires a ticket, available at three Mid-Missouri locations. Tickets at the Columbia location were all gone as of this morning.

Biden, a Democratic senator from Delaware tapped to be presidential candidate Barack Obama’s running mate, also will make a stop in the St. Louis area, holding a similar event at Mehlville High School.

J. Scott Christianson, Boone County Democratic Party vice chairman, said the party didn’t get confirmation of Biden’s visit until this weekend. But he said the party knew earlier that the Obama campaign was thinking about visiting Columbia. "I think Boone County in some ways, you could argue, reflects a lot of the nation," Christianson said. "It tends to swing with the rest of the nation as far as presidential elections."

Indeed, Boone County has been something of a swing area in Missouri. In 2004, President George W. Bush carried the county by a little more than 150 votes. Then-Vice President Al Gore carried the county by less than 400 votes in 2000.

Bush held a rally in 2004 at the Boone County Fairgrounds, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., staged an event in Jefferson City. Christianson said he didn’t know whether Obama himself would visit Columbia in the near future.

Biden’s visit to Columbia could show that Obama’s campaign is seeking to "rally the troops" in an area of the state that was friendly to the Illinois senator during the February primaries. Obama defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., by a landslide in Boone County.

George Connor, a political science professor at Missouri State University in Springfield, said it’s still too early to determine whether Biden’s visit signifies that Obama’s campaign is focusing on Missouri.

"I think the bigger issue is he’s going to Columbia," Connor said. "Obama did well in Columbia. So that’s a rallying-the-troops, that’s a get-out-the-vote, as opposed to conversion."

Obama himself made stops in Springfield, Lebanon, Rolla and Union earlier this year. The campaign has touted opening a number of offices in rural parts of the state to improve performance in outstate Missouri - an area where Obama fared poorly in February.

The visit comes as Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign seems to have ramped up its focus on the Show-Me State. In addition to a massive rally in O’Fallon before the Republican National Convention, McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, held a rally in Lee’s Summit today.

McCain, R-Ariz., was rumored to be visiting Columbia as well, but the campaign decided to hold the event in the Kansas City area.

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