{"id":32565,"date":"2024-03-30T13:14:31","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T20:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32565"},"modified":"2024-03-30T13:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T20:14:32","slug":"the-biden-campaign-is-quietly-preparing-a-trump-ambush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/30\/the-biden-campaign-is-quietly-preparing-a-trump-ambush\/","title":{"rendered":"The Biden Campaign Is Quietly Preparing a Trump Ambush"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jake Lahut\/The Daily Beast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The‘The ingredients for a Biden comeback are falling into place at a moment in the 2024 campaign when Trump is mired in legal and financial problems.’ (photo: Getty)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

29 march 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The ingredients for a Biden comeback are falling into place at a moment in the 2024 campaign when Trump is mired in legal and financial problems.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Just a few months ago, it was hard to see the ingredients of a Joe Biden<\/a> comeback\u2014even while squinting at the recipe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The president began the election year with his approval rating at historic lows<\/a>. He was trailing Donald Trump<\/a> in almost all of the key battleground states, as well as in national polling averages<\/a>. Influential liberals were so concerned that the octogenarian incumbent did not have another campaign in him that some were openly calling for him to be replaced<\/a> as the nominee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the general election kicks off this spring, however, those calls have quieted\u2014because Biden\u2019s resurgence is coming into focus. While the president still faces serious obstacles to a second term, several important data points are lining up to demonstrate he is picking up badly needed momentum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in a long time, there\u2019s good news for Biden on the polling front. Gradual improvements in the battleground states<\/a> along with an uptick in his approval rating led one Democratic strategist, Simon Rosenberg, to declare \u201cthe Biden bump<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The boost is at the very least correlated with Biden\u2019s fiery State of the Union address on March 7, when he repeatedly went after his \u201cpredecessor\u201d and made sure to mix it up with Republicans in the chamber on a few occasions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, Biden\u2019s team has continued the punchy, combative tone on display that night, using press releases to cheekily slam their legally challenged opponent as \u201cBroke Don.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of that, the Biden campaign has continued to flex what has always been its core strength: fundraising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a $53 million haul in February, the Biden campaign built on their already impressive financial advantage over Trump, who brought in only $20 million over the same period. The Biden campaign has $71 million in cash on hand, compared to just $33.5 million for Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tide is turning, a Biden adviser argued to The Daily Beast, and although they aren\u2019t putting too much stock into any recent polling upticks, the president\u2019s team is ready to seize upon April and May as a crucial time to ambush a wounded Trump campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s aggressive,\u201d a source within the Biden campaign said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly of the mood inside the re-election team. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of travel, there\u2019s a lot of work. It\u2019s all exciting. We\u2019re heading into this final fundraiser of the month with the former presidents [Obama and Clinton], but it\u2019s aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking advantage of a substantial fundraising lead, the Biden campaign is focusing on two key areas: travel and organizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since his State of the Union, Biden has visited every major battleground state\u2014typically pairing official White House stops with separate private campaign events\u2014in an effort to demonstrate his ability to keep an energetic schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump, on the other hand, has only done a rally in Ohio and another in the battleground state of Georgia since Super Tuesday. Otherwise, he\u2019s mostly been confined to his Mar-a-Lago estate as he prepares to spend the second half of April and most of May stuck in a Manhattan court four days a week<\/a> for the upcoming Stormy Daniels hush money trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the Biden campaign is going full steam ahead on hiring in the battleground states, approaching 100 field offices with more than 130 staffers spread across eight major battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, as well as North Carolina and New Hampshire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such investments mean that Biden can begin the crucial work of mobilizing voters early. The Trump campaign, by comparison, could not tell The Daily Beast whether they have made any additional hires or opened any field offices in the battleground states, beyond shifting over the same team focused on early primary and Super Tuesday states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an election which will likely be decided by less than tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battlegrounds, the Biden campaign is focusing on gaining as much as they can at the margins now to catch up to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramping up their field organizing, along with getting Biden on the road and in front of cameras to show he still has the energy to campaign at full throttle, is an opportunity they can\u2019t afford to miss while Trump remains mired in legal and financial problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the president is beginning to do the very important work that wins elections, which is travel the country, set the tone for what this election will be about, and build a coalition and build an operation that builds a winning coalition,\u201d Kevin Munoz, Biden\u2019s national campaign spokesperson, told The Daily Beast in a phone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the same time that Donald Trump has very real infrastructure issues, has no interest in building a winning coalition and is actively attacking the voters that will decide this election, ultimately this will come down to those voters,\u201d Munoz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris LaCivita\u2014a top Trump campaign adviser who is also the chief operating officer of the Republican National Committee\u2014rejected the idea that the former president\u2019s team should disclose its organizing plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy combining forces and operations, The Trump campaign and RNC are deploying operations that are fueled by passionate volunteers who care about saving America and firing Joe Biden. We do not feel obligated however to discuss the specifics of our strategy, timing and tactics with members of the News Media,\u201d LaCivita told The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats want to talk process because they don\u2019t want to talk about Broken Braindead Biden and his absolute failure,\u201d LaCivita argued. \u201cThe media should not do Democrats\u2019 bidding and should focus on the issues the American people care about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, for a Trump operation obsessed with polls, the first cracks in the former president\u2019s so-far dominant lead are beginning to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s approval rating has seen an uptick in the FiveThirtyEight rolling average<\/a>\u2014jumping up from under 38 percent on March 12 to over 40 percent approval just two weeks later\u2014and pulling ahead in The Economist<\/em>\u2019s head-to-head polling average<\/a> for the first time since September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add to the Biden campaign\u2019s morale boost\u2014even though his team tends to reject the value of polls this far out from an election\u2014Biden led Trump in three polls<\/a> last week alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there remain undecided voters in key states, the Biden campaign will worry more about them later, given the abundant data on how undecided voters are very often late deciding<\/a> voters as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden campaign is eyeing the late spring and early summer to start focusing their messaging on persuading undecided voters, according to the senior aide, with the present focus continuing to be building out their door knocking infrastructure to make sure core voters show up to cast their ballot no matter what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what matters at this point in the cycle,\u201d Munoz said. \u201cAnd I think we have a very good story to tell, not only on the operation we\u2019re building, but also on the issues that we\u2019re fighting for. These are the issues that when Americans go to the ballot box, they care most about, and Donald Trump is running on an agenda that people actively root against when they go to the ballot box.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump campaign has their own version of such an argument\u2014one they believe will make Biden\u2019s campaign hires irrelevant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Trump campaign will raise the money, deploy the necessary assets, and win because President Trump will secure the border, make American families more prosperous, and make our nation respected on the world stage,\u201d Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Veterans of the presidential campaign trail, however, think these seemingly small moves in isolation can make quite a big difference when put together over the long haul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Messina, who served as Barack Obama\u2019s 2012 campaign manager, argued that Biden is in a stronger position to win than Trump given the cards they\u2019ve been dealt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like to play poker and I would simply much rather have Biden\u2019s cards than Trump\u2019s,\u201d Messina said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s two key advantages, according to Messina, are on the economy and the legal front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe economy is improving and people are feeling it, Biden has an affirmative message, and Trump will continue to remind independents why they voted against him in 2020 by campaigning from a courtroom,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matt Grossman, a political scientist with Michigan State University, said it very well could be the case that March marks the nadir of Biden\u2019s polling woes, but added a note of caution for the president\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy question has been what kind of message is likely to work this time,\u201d Grossman said. \u201cIn 2020 we had strong evidence people had already made up their mind about Donald Trump, but not Joe Biden\u2026 Now we have two very well-known candidates, so it would make me expect the efficacy of any persuasion effort would be less.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With two such well-known candidates and some 70 percent of the public weary of a 2020 rematch, the little things could count even more this time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s close to a 50-50 election, then minor things can still move the outcome. And certainly overall, there\u2019s evidence that more contact is better, to deliver both turnout and persuasion messages more is better,\u201d Grossman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re just trying to get any small advantage they can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Lahut\/The Daily Beast ‘The ingredients for a Biden comeback are falling into place at a moment in the 2024 campaign when Trump is mired in legal and financial problems.’ (photo: Getty) 29 march 24 (RSN.org) The ingredients for a Biden comeback are falling into place at a moment in… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32566,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32565\/revisions\/32566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}