US Election 2024: President Joe Biden has almost all but announced that he is running for re-election, but one of the major questions about the 2024 campaign remains unresolved: Who will manage it? Where will it be based? When will he finally make it official?
The advisors have long said they plan to wait until after March, when the first fundraising period of the year ends. It was an effort to help manage expectations as many donors who had given generously to Democratic causes during the previous fall’s elections were looking for a break.
But an announcement is still not imminent, aides insist, and probably won’t come at least until Biden returns from an expected trip to Ireland in mid-April. Working on his own schedule could counter Biden’s low approval ratings and questions about his age – the 80-year-old will turn 86 before the end of his second term. It also means Biden will not succumb to pressure from former President Donald Trump, who has already announced his 2024 campaign, or other top Republicans who may enter the race, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or former Vice President Mike Pence is included.
“They’ve earned the luxury of making a timetable,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist in Washington. “The longer he can keep this thing focused on his duties at the White House, and less about campaigning back and forth, the better off he will be.”
Trump’s allegations will definitely help Biden
That said, Biden’s aides are aware that Trump has been impeached for his role in the secret money payment to a porn actor, and they say Biden will view his announcement as a time when he is in the political spotlight. Will not share. The man he defeated in the 2020 election.
Biden’s inner political circle is ready to begin executing on campaign strategy from day one, and the president sees nothing short of taking his time. There is no significant Democratic challenger to Biden for the nomination.
Self-help guru Marianne Williamson is the only contender at this point in the primary race.
It will also be up to Biden to decide where next year’s Democratic National Convention will be held, between the final three cities of Atlanta, Chicago and New York. Organizers say there is little pressure to make that decision until the president is ready to take it, but with logistical groundwork in place.
Much of the re-election effort will be driven from the White House, where Biden’s most senior advisers are expected to reside. Still, campaign managers and top staffers will be responsible for raising massive amounts of money, reaching millions of voters and making the case for Biden on the doorsteps of Americans and online, while he is still busy governing.
A top Biden adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a re-election campaign that has not yet been announced, said Biden’s 2020 bid was worth $1.7 billion and this time The effort will be huge.
How to build a proper 2024 race infrastructure
The advisor said a key will be finding “verifiers” or non-Washington voices who can spread the campaign’s message at a time when many people have lost faith in everything political. Subsidiaries and partners are discussing how to build an appropriate 2024 race infrastructure. Circumstances are different from 2020 for Biden, whose race was held when the country was largely locked down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The political environment is also different, as technological and cultural changes continue to change the way people communicate. Biden’s advisers are crafting a new model of campaigning appropriate for the moment to energize his base and identify and woo the persuasive center — essentially a customized communications strategy for each target voter.
Aba Blankson, chief marketing and communications officer for the NAACP, said her organization is non-partisan but had success mobilizing black voters using similarly targeted political messaging ahead of last November’s election — a part of Biden’s base. critical part. This included text messages, radio advertising and knocking on doors to promote “peer-to-peer” organizing in areas capable of swinging decisive races.
“I think his timing is what his timing is,” Bankson said. “But, for us, it’s the reality of every year.”
Biden’s choice of campaign headquarters has been narrowed down to Philadelphia, the 2020 venue, and Wilmington, Delaware, where he has a home and where the president spends many weekends away from the White House.
While Biden prefers Delaware on all counts, some top Democrats worry that recruiting top campaign talent to Wilmington will be difficult. Biden waited weeks after the start of his 2020 campaign to announce that he had settled on Philadelphia, a key battleground state.
More challenging is filling the job of campaign manager. Some potential candidates see it as a thankless task, with most decisions confined to the White House. Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, Jane O’Malley Dillon, is now the White House deputy chief of staff and plans to remain in the job.
Those shortlisted include Julie Chavez Rodriguez, director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and a deputy campaign manager for Biden’s 2020 campaign, and Sam Cornell, executive director of the Democratic National Committee. Quentin Fulks, campaign manager for Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock’s win again last fall is mentioned.
Biden led Democrats to a stronger-than-expected showing in 2022 by urging voters to reject “extreme” followers of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. So bringing in an outsider who ran a successful Democratic campaign last fall is a possibility. But party leaders acknowledge that breaking into Biden’s famously tight inner circle has been challenging at times.
One exception is O’Malley Dillon, who entered Biden’s orbit in late 2020 after spearheading former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke’s unsuccessful presidential bid. Trump has not named a campaign manager, despite announcing his candidacy months ago. But other employees are not waiting to get up.
Republican Nikki Haley, Trump’s ambassador to the United States and a former governor of South Carolina, chose Betsy Ankeny, executive director of Haley’s Stand for America political action committee, to manage her presidential campaign.
The super PAC linked to DeSantis brought in former Trump aide Matt Woking and strategist Jeff Roe, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign and Republican Glenn Youngkin’s winning campaign for Virginia governor in 2021.
Even with unanswered questions about his campaign structure, Biden’s pitch to voters is taking shape. From the State of the Union address in February to speeches to donors, the president has begun to make the case that Americans should let him “finish” what he started.
He tried to frame the race as a choice between himself and “MAGA Republicans” who, he argued, would undermine the country’s core values. Biden has traveled in recent months to promote key policy achievements of his administration, including a bipartisan public works package, and plans to move forward. Aides said it would help them use this year to test the political message that might best resonate in 2024.
Bannon predicted, “He’s not going to win re-election or lose re-election based on whatever happens in his campaign.”
(with inputs from AP)
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