#Jen O'Malley Dillon

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kevin Robillard at HuffPost:

Despite surges in polling, fundraising and volunteers, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign chair insisted in a memo out Sunday morning that the Democratic candidate remains a “clear” underdog as the 2024 presidential campaign enters its final stages. Since swapping out President Joe Biden for Harris in July, Democrats have reignited their hopes of defeating former President Donald Trump. However, in a clear effort to ward off complacency among still-jubilant members of the party, campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said the campaign will need to hammer home a message focused on linking Trump to an unpopular conservative policy manifesto and exploit their advantages in the ground game to win.

“Make no mistake: we head into the final stretch of this race as the clear underdogs,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in the memo. “Donald Trump has a motivated base of support, with more support and higher favorability than he has had at any point since 2020.” “In 2020, the election came down to about 40,000 votes across the battleground states,” O’Malley Dillon continued. “This November, we anticipate margins to be similarly razor-thin.” The memo came just ahead of the Labor Day holiday, which often signals the start of the most intense period in American electoral politics. It also comes as the first mail ballots will be sent to voters in North Carolina, a key swing state. The plan O’Malley Dillon laid out to win the battleground states focused on the Democrats’ ground game advantages, saying the campaign, Democratic National Committee and state parties have opened more than 312 offices and hired more than 2,000 staff members. “In an election that will be decided on the margins, Trump’s campaign still lags far behind in the infrastructure needed to win in key battleground states,” O’Malley Dillon wrote, citing Democratic advantages in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia.

Kamala Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon noted in a memo that despite polling leads for Harris in most polls, her campaign are still the “clear underdogs” in the race to prevent complacency.

After what happened in 2016, this is the right move by the Harris campaign.

[ridenwithbiden]

On Jan. 6, 2021, then-President Donald Trump held a rally on the Ellipse, with the White House in the background, telling his supporters to “fight like hell” before a mob of them violently stormed the Capitol where Congress was certifying that he had lost the election.

Tonight, a week before Election Day, Vice President Harris will use the same backdrop to lay out the closing argument of her campaign: that it’s time to turn the page on the divisive and chaotic Trump era.

More than 20,000 people are expected for the event, which is aimed at reaching what campaign operatives call "low propensity" voters who aren't usually all that interested in politics — to try to convince them to cast a ballot.

”This speech is really designed to reach those undecided voters, those folks that are making the decision to break through in a moment when it's sometimes hard to break through, and really to talk about what's at stake in this election,” campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters.

”It's really a reminder of the gravity of the job: how much a president can do for good — and for bad — to shape the country and impact people's lives,” she said.

Rally after rally, Harris has talked about Jan. 6

Harris started off her campaign as a joyful warrior. But as the race wore on and polls showed it tightening, Harris has increasingly leaned on the dangers of electing Trump — a candidate she argues is “unhinged and unstable.”

Harris elevated dire warnings about Trump as she campaigned with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, trying to peel off moderate Republicans and independents appalled by what had happened on Jan. 6.

“He refused to accept the will of the people and the results of an election that was free and fair,” Harris has said.

Last week, she agreed that Trump is a “fascist” after the New York Times released interviews with retired Marine Gen. John Kelly making that same charge.

Kelly had been White House chief of staff to Trump and said his former boss, in private, even praised Hitler and his generals. The Trump campaign dismissed Kelly’s stories as fabrications.

For Harris, this was another opportunity to drive home her warning. “This is a window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best,” Harris said.

Echoes of Clinton’s campaign

Hillary Clinton also issued dire warnings in the closing days of her 2016 campaign, reminding voters that in a debate, Trump had refused to say he would accept the results of the election.

“Make no mistake: by doing that, he is threatening our democracy,” Clinton said.

Trump won the 2016 election and gladly accepted the results.

At the time, Clinton’s warnings were seen by many as over the top: a last-minute effort to try to move voters. People were skeptical, said Brian Fallon, who worked on the Clinton campaign and is a senior adviser to Harris now.

“There was a phenomenon of taking Trump seriously but not literally,” Fallon said echoing a line that became a mantra after Trump’s 2016 win.

But now, Fallon argues it’s different — because Trump refused to accept his loss in 2020, and still hasn’t. He has described Jan. 6 as “a day of love” and has pledged to pardon at least some of those who were prosecuted for their actions that day.

“We’re not asking anybody to suspend disbelief in order to entertain these warnings,” said Fallon. “This is something that is the American people’s actual experience over the past several years.”

The argument is persuasive for some groups of voters

The Harris campaign has its attention trained on swing-state suburbs where tens of thousands of Republicans voted for Nikki Haley rather than Trump in the Republican primary — in some cases, even after she had dropped out of the race.

In polls and focus groups, voters say they are worried about violence around this year’s election.

“This isn’t hypothetical anymore,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “It’s real lived experience.”

Warnings about Trump are persuasive to women swing voters, and are mobilizing for women and Democratic men, Lake said. These are voters like Susan Shurina, who spoke to NPR’s Asma Khalid after voting early in Alpharetta, Ga.

“I supported the Democratic Party this time although I’m a registered Republican,” Shurina said last week. “I’m just fearful of the rhetoric I hear from Trump. He seems to be very violent in wanting to control, and vengeful.”

But Marc Lotter, who served in the Trump administration and now works at a pro-Trump think-tank, argued Harris’ warnings will ring hollow with a lot of voters, who already lived through one Trump term.

“Well, he didn’t lock her up,” Lotter said of Trump’s threat to Hillary Clinton.

Lotter said he sees Harris’ warnings as a desperation move — a scare tactic — because Harris hasn’t been able to convince undecided voters she would be better for them than Trump.

“I don’t see how that’s going to be the winning factor at the end,” Lotter said.

Harris will present a contrast

Some Democrats have worried Harris’ warnings are not enough to get across the finish line in a very tight race where voters rank economic concerns as their top priority.

Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, a group that grew out of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign, said he is worried some on the left will stay home rather than vote, or will consider third parties.

Harris is set to argue that Trump, if elected, will continue to focus on himself and his growing list of personal enemies, citing his own increasingly inflammatory closing arguments.

“He calls these Americans the enemy within and says that he would use the American military to go after American citizens,” said Harris.

She will contrast that with what she has been calling her “to-do list” of policies to try to bring down prices and make life easier for Americans.

“She's obviously going to touch on lowering costs on things like groceries, housing, health care,” Harris' campaign chair O'Malley Dillon said. “You're going to hear her really speak to middle class families, and what they're worried about and what she's going to do about it.”

NPR's Asma Khalid contributed to this story.

[mightyflamethrower]

No Comment Kamala Became No-Show Kamala

Classy to the bitter end, eh?

The momentum toward a Donald Trump victory became apparent early enough in the evening for both campaigns to adjust to the outcome. That's when candidates have to make plans for either a long night of vote-counting or a concession speech. At the very least, candidates -- even losing candidates -- are expected to show up, if for no other reason than to greet the people who came to see her.

Instead, Kamala Harris unburdened herself of what had been -- her supporters:

Vice President Kamala Harris did not speak as election night turned into Wednesday morning as supporters gathered for what was supposed to be a celebration at her alma mater, Howard University. Harris will address the nation later Wednesday, her campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond votes told a thinning crowd gathered at her watch party at Howard University after midnight. Photos show partygoers leaving and Harris supporters crying as results continued to come in that showed her falling behind in key states.

 Put aside the breach of etiquette in not offering a concession speech or a call acknowledging defeat. That had been customary until 2016, but hasn't been practiced since. That custom has a real purpose, too -- it allows the winner to deliver a victory speech while his own supporters are still gathered without stepping on the defeated opponent's time. However, Hillary Clinton refused to follow that precedent, and Trump refused to accept the defeat on Election Night four years ago too.

That still leaves the haughty arrogance of leaving one's own supporters without so much as a personal "thanks." They didn't show up to hear from Cedric Richmond or to get an e-mail from Jen O'Malley Dillon. They came out to support Harris through the thick and thin of an Election Night that already had plenty of portents for failure before the supporters ever arrived. The least they could have gotten in return was a candidate that stuck with them for as long as they stuck with her. 

Instead, Harris went to bed. (personally I think she passed out.) And even worse, Richmond and Dillon told those supporters to show up the next day instead, as if they had nothing better to do than be at the beck and call of an autocrat who couldn't be bothered to address them the first time. 

I can't think of a better example of how Harris failed the test in this election cycle. Harris wouldn't talk about her policies, wouldn't talk about her positions, and largely wouldn't say anything other than she was raised in a middle-class household. Harris instead demanded the vote on the basis of Trump being a "fascist," and tried to frighten her way into the White House. 

And when it became clear that Harris failed, she bailed. 

That may be many things, but leadership it ain't.

I may not have agreed with her supporters, but they deserved better than that. So does the country -- and we made that clear last night in a way that, as Duane just wrote, wasn't even close. 

[igettalk]

Early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump secured victory in the 2024 presidential race, ensuring his return to the White House after winning key battleground states. The Associated Press reported Trump's election status around 5:30 a.m. when his win in Wisconsin pushed him past the required 270 Electoral College votes.Trump's path to victory was secured through decisive wins in crucial swing states including Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan. He also led in the popular vote with 51% of ballots counted.President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee following Biden's withdrawal in July, have both contacted Trump to concede the race. The White House released a statement confirming that Biden called Trump to congratulate him and express his commitment to a smooth transition of power. Biden has also invited Trump to the White House to begin the transition process. https://twitter.com/MichaelSCollura/status/1854261149119942660 Harris, who entered the presidential race roughly 100 days after Biden's unexpected exit, also spoke with Trump by phone on Wednesday. Through her campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, Harris communicated her intention to work with Biden to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, specifically noting it would differ from the transition challenges of 2020.The Democratic Party is currently dealing with their own internal conflict over the campaign's outcome. Some politicians are particularly criticizing the handling of President Biden's withdrawal from the race, which came after what observers described as a problematic television debate with Trump in June. https://twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1854175008760721839 Biden, who had previously insisted he was fit for another term, ultimately stepped aside in July, stating his decision was "in the best interest of my party and the country."Following the conclusion of the 2024 presidential race, Harris is scheduled to address the nation at 4 p.m. ET from Howard University in Washington, D.C. With 277 Electoral College votes secured through early Wednesday, and additional states still being tallied, Trump is set to become the 47th president of the United States. Read the full article

[sandrabunny112]

Harris raised $82 million during DNC, $540 million since launch, campaign says

In addition, nearly 200,000 volunteers signed up to help the campaign.

Vice President Kamala Harris raised $82 million the week of the Democratic National Convention, bringing her total haul since launching her candidacy last month to $540 million, her campaign said.

The sum is buttressed by nearly $40 million raked in during and after Harris delivered her acceptance speech at the convention on Thursday night, campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon said in a statement, which noted the campaign crossed the half-billion-dollar mark moments before she took the stage.

O'Malley Dillon said the hour after the vice president's remarks was the campaign's best fundraising hour.

Read More...

[thecapitolradar]

Elissa Slotkin (above) is running for retiring Debbie Stabenow's open Senate seat in Michigan.

Until now, our parent company, Civil Society, has been an enthusiastic Slotkin supporter. But, today, we were blindsided when we learned that Slotkin is a lesbian separatist -- a person who believes that lesbians should take over the country in the same way that dominionist religious types are also attempting to take over the US. Naturally, men are excluded from this effort, as are transgender women.

Slotkin is so zealous about this takeover that she schemed to tank a superb and widely inclusive Harris campaign slogan that had won a vote among campaign staff.

With the aid of her current partner, Harris campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon, Slotkin got her wish.

As CEO of Civil Society, I employ people from all across the gender spectrum, including cisgender men and transgender women. Trans-exclusionary radical feminists be damned. People like Slotkin and O'Malley Dillon give feminism a bad name.

I am a feminist, and I will not cower in the shadows while these extremists try to take over.

I have cancelled Civil Society's donations to the Slotkin campaign. We will be suing her to return the Civil Society donations she has already spent.

If you're not representing everybody, you aren't representing anybody. If we are donating to your campaign, that had better be read, understood, and followed.

Dr. Laurel Fishbear, CEO

Civil Society

[somebeltwaytrash]

With all the phony gravitas that a British social climber can muster, somebody or other at the Guardian has summoned up a SERIOUS review of Nancy Pelosi's book. Who needs research?

We do, and we're on hand to refute the Guardian's sober/sympathetic singalong.

Housewife? She's a banker.

Mother of five . . . what -- hamsters? Other than Alexandra, who and where are these many children?

Baltimore? She wishes. Pelosi is from New Jersey.

Thank you, NEXT!

That's today's Repub Party for you: Donald Trump and the pervading stench of human feces. NEXT!

While this may be vintage Trump, we know for a fact that Hillary Clinton does this at gatherings with foreign dignitaries (Jewish AND Muslim) on a regular basis. Maybe Pelosi can't tell the difference between Trump and Hillary anymore.

Which brings us to . . .

Too old to govern is too old to govern, and Pelosi entered that age bracket a long time ago. As for the absolute whopper that has Pelosi supporting Walz, she fought tooth and nail against him, and has proven herself determined to quash his candidacy by directing Harris campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon to botch the campaign's response the the ginned-up controversy about Walz's military service. Pelosi has always been a supporter of Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro who is, like Pelosi herself, an unbending neoconservative.

The Guardian's review repeats so many lies that one wonders whether readers outside the US even got the same book.

Be alert. Don't bother with Pelosi's self-love fest.

[bllsbailey]

Dana Perino Talks 'Proof of Life' on Biden Dropping Out, As New Report Raises More Speculation

I wrote about the pressure on Joe Biden to get out of the 2024 race being the real attack on democracy here, with Democrats ignoring the votes of more than 14 million people in the primaries. 

But beyond that, there are a lot of other questions swirling around Biden's departure. 

This is a huge thing since virtually up until the very moment the announcement letter was dropped by Biden's account on X on Sunday, Joe Biden was saying he was in it to win it, and belligerently rejecting all efforts to push him aside. Then, that we don't see him and there's no picture of him signing the letter, or video of him even saying now that he's quitting is just weird and a bit concerning, particularly since there's no reason given for quitting the race in the letter. His brother Frank indicated there were questions of health. That was met by a "source" close to the family attacking Frank and claiming he was an alcoholic (so you couldn't trust what he had to say). Wow. 

READ MORE: The Elites Just Pulled off a Real Attack on Democracy

Frank Biden Made Stunning Admission About Joe's Health Indicating We've Been Lied To—Then It Gets Weird

Meanwhile, it's his White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, not Biden, telling the Cabinet and organizing meetings, according to our sister site Townhall, citing Politico 

— Gerrit Lansing (@lansing) July 22, 2024

Biden’s post to X blindsided much of the rest of the staff at both the White House and the campaign, who had gotten no indication he was reconsidering his run. Since then, Zients has managed much of the communication across an anxious administration, holding calls Sunday afternoon with both the Cabinet and senior White House staffers. Zients is scheduled to hold an all-staff White House call on Monday morning, as well as a call with appointees across the executive branch.  “I could not be more proud to work for President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the American people — alongside all of you, the best White House team in history,” Zients said in an email to staff that was obtained by POLITICO. “There’s so much more to do – and as President Biden says ‘there is nothing America can’t do — when we do it together.’” 

Biden supposedly told Zients, Kamala Harris, and campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, then spoke to some senior advisors just before he went public. But the fact that there was no "proof of life" when it comes to Biden on this issue had many, like Fox's Dana Perino, wondering what was going on here and talking about "Weekend at Bernie's." 

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 21, 2024

"They didn't even release a WH still photograph. Nothing. I hope he's fine, but you can forgive people for wondering if we are really living "Weekend at Bernie's" right now," she said. Perino noted that people are genuinely asking why he has withdrawn, and the lack of information on that, of course, raises additional questions. 

Now, the letter did say he would appear later this week to address the question. 

But as with everything Biden, the way he handles things is never good. This makes everything worse and gives rise to speculation. If it's because of health, then he isn't up to being in the office now, either. If it's because he thinks he's going to lose, then the elites just torched democracy and tossed the votes of over 14 million people for political expediency. 

There's no good answer here.

[arpov-blog-blog]

Biden digs in

Biden officials are telling Democratic critics that President Biden is eager to prove them wrong — and plans to hit the campaign trail once he recovers from COVID, with potential trips to Georgia and Texas in coming days, Axios' Hans Nichols and Alex Thompson report.

Why it matters: As he battles COVID in his Delaware beach house, Biden appears immune to the calls from his own party, including from the Senate's two most endangered Democrats, to drop out of the race.

⚡ Split screen: In public and in private, Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon made a forceful case for why he is going to stay in the race, with some frank talk for her staff: "Don't watch cable news all the time ... The people that the president is hearing from are saying: 'Stay in this race and keep going and keep fighting,' and 'we need you.'"

Outside Biden's bubble, the calls for him to bow out grew louder, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) saying: "I think the President should end his campaign."

💥 The big picture: The president and his inner circle are on a collision course with the party he leads.

Senior Democratic officials are urging Biden to make a decision on his future this weekend, with many of them peppering Biden's most trusted advisers with arguments for why he should bow out for the good of the party.

"It's a fairly universal sentiment internally that we have reached the end of the road," said a Biden aide — though they added they weren't sure the president and some select aides feel the same way.

👀 Steve Ricchetti, one of Biden's core advisers, traveled to Delaware yesterday to be available for face-to-face conversions with Biden when his COVID status allows it.

Since the debate, Ricchetti has been in close contact with lawmakers, donors and party leaders — many of whom have explained why they think Biden should bow out of the presidential race.

While Ricchetti has challenged some of their assumptions, he also makes it clear that he's interested in hearing, and digesting, their views, according to people familiar with the matter.

Ricchetti frequently spends the weekends with Biden in Rehoboth, and Biden typically has a core group of aides who travel with him.

"When the president travels, the White House always includes several members of senior staff. Annie Tomasini and Steve Ricchetti, who often travel with the President, will have the shift in Rehoboth," said Saloni Sharma, a White House spokesperson.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris Smith at Vanity Fair:

On a sunny afternoon the views from Joe Biden’s campaign headquarters in downtown Wilmington, Delaware are so clear that if you squint hard you can almost see the White House, 100 miles to the south. The floor plan is open and the windows run just about floor to ceiling, so all 200 staffers share in the sweeping vista.

With the striking exception of probably the most important person on the premises. That Jen O’Malley Dillon sits at the very center of the office is appropriate, symbolically: She is a hub of the reelection effort’s leadership infrastructure. It also means that O’Malley Dillon, officially the campaign chair, is the only person on the team who occupies a dimly lit cubicle. Four years ago, J.O.D., as most everyone in Bidenworld knows her, became the first woman to manage a winning Democratic US presidential campaign, and the first person of any gender in three decades to knock off an incumbent. O’Malley Dillon, 47, has shunned credit and most interviews since. So her nondescript current workspace—blank walls, a tiny desk strewn with papers, a small bookshelf holding a jumble of binders and framed family photos—fits her no-nonsense approach. O’Malley Dillon is ferociously focused on reelecting Biden. Gazing out the window would be a useless distraction. “You have to keep in perspective what’s at stake because every second I waste is a second that we could lose the thing that matters most to me, which is a future for my kids,” she tells me.

Her relentlessness is a good thing, because her candidate is running uphill. For months polls have shown Trump beating Biden nationally, though the race remains tight; more important, thanks to our genius electoral college system, is Trump’s advantage in six of the seven battleground states that are likely to be decisive. Things look equally rugged for Biden when you go deeper than the horse race: A majority of Americans believe economic conditions were better under Trump—despite Biden delivering record-low unemployment numbers—and inflation remains stubbornly high. In March the share of voters strongly disapproving of Biden’s job performance reached a new peak, according to a New York Times survey. Many voters under 35 are angered by the administration’s support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. And voters of every age group think Biden, 81, is too old to bid for a second term.

The leaders of his reelection team aren’t in denial; they understand they’re facing daunting challenges. The coalition that elected Biden in 2020 has splintered. “We believe that Joe Biden has an important story to sell and has been a historic president,” a senior campaign strategist says. “But that doesn’t mean to say that everyone is going to love him perfectly.” Which may not make for the most stirring political rallying cry. But it underlies the campaign’s methodical drive to raise tens of millions of dollars to assemble a sophisticated operation that will press the fight in both conventional and innovative ways. The plan stretches from boosting Latino turnout in Arizona to winning Michigan—despite the state’s much-hyped “uncommitted” Democratic primary voters—to flipping North Carolina to wooing a meaningful number of Nikki Haley-Republican-primary voters to aggressively educating potential Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voters about his beliefs. For months the campaign has quietly built infrastructure in key states—a foundation that is now allowing it to capitalize on Republican gifts, like the Arizona supreme court’s approval of a near-total ban on abortion. “We know exactly the voters we need to turn out,” a senior campaign operative says, “and we’ve got a plan to do it.”

That confidence flows from data research that assigns probabilities to individual voters. It is also based on a deep roster of human political intelligence, like Quentin Fulks, the principal deputy campaign manager, who was a top aide on Raphael Warnock’s winning Georgia senate reelection campaign over Herschel Walker in 2022, and Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the 46-year-old campaign manager who is a granddaughter of pioneering labor leader César Chávez. “We wanted to make sure we had strong campaign experience, but also really strong lived experience for the communities and voters that we want to reach. So it’s not by default that it’s myself and Quentin running this campaign. That was extremely intentional,” Rodríguez says. “And being able to prioritize our base targets, it’s not the way that most presidentials have been run. They don’t usually invest in doing outreach to communities of color early.”

Yet much of the work of piecing together the strategy and the machinery has occurred in Wilmington, outside the national media spotlight, which has contributed to a perception among many Democrats that the Biden campaign is eerily, delusionally calm. “What scares me to death is they think they’ve proven everyone wrong every time,” a senior Democratic insider says. “They have this outward posture of, ‘We came from nowhere in the 2020 primary, we’re the only ones who beat Trump in the general, so trust us.’ But remember, in the fall of 2020, they sent Biden to Ohio and Kamala Harris to Texas where they had no chance, when they could have been in Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. So let’s not get on too high of a horse.”

Maybe so—though Biden visited and won those four key states four years ago. And up close, it’s clear no one is resting on their horses, or their laurels. The 2024 campaign’s activities are intense and far-reaching, permeated by a deep sense of urgency. “I can certainly feel the weight of what we’re doing,” says Dan Kanninen, who leads the battleground-state effort. “But to be in it gives a measure of purpose that is different than just allowing your anxieties to take you somewhere else.” Biden’s lieutenants have forceful, detailed, logical pushbacks to every possible criticism of the campaign. There’s only one part of the reelection operation that feels unnerving: so much of the victory calculus hinges on voters, once they’ve heard the relevant facts, behaving rationally. That worry is compounded by the stakes. “If we lose this election,” a national Democratic strategist says, “we might not have another one.”

Rob Flaherty rates a private corner office. One of its walls is decorated with images of Biden’s trademark aviator sunglasses in a repeating pattern of green, blue, black, and orange. The opposite wall is dominated by a banner, its black background contrasting with large white letters reading “NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING.” Flaherty had better know something. His title, deputy campaign manager, doesn’t even hint at the magnitude of his responsibilities. The 32-year-old oversees two crucial aspects of Biden’s campaign: digital strategy and relational organizing. The first role means not simply figuring out how to target a multi-million-dollar pro-Biden online ad campaign, but trying to fight off a fire hose of right-wing attacks and disinformation. Flaherty did this craftily for Biden during the 2020 campaign, particularly in steering an effort to identify “market moving” issues—separating things that had the potential to actually influence voters, like concerns about Biden’s mental fitness, from mere noise, like the Republican obsession with Hunter Biden. In some respects—most notably Gaza and inflation—there are new substantive challenges this time. One major concern hasn’t changed: Biden’s advanced age. “The way you combat the age issue,” Flaherty says, “is, one, he gets out there and addresses it. What you see him doing in his paid [media] right now. And it’s by fighting on the issues that people care about. If we address the fact that they want to see him go and fight for them, the issue goes away pretty quick.”

Yet the online landscape has changed dramatically in four years, with media consumers fractured into ever-more-personalized content silos, many of them hardened against campaign messaging, a shift that seems to benefit Trump. “Voters who do not want to hear about politics never have to,” Flaherty says. “People who are not hearing about politics, they are not trusting of politicians, they’re not trusting the media. So it becomes incumbent on the campaign to think about, how do we reach those people where they are? You have to diversify the way you do paid media, right? You can't just spend 70% on linear broadcast television and hope you’re going to reach folks.”

One of Flaherty’s priorities is reaching tuned-out potential voters. “The voters who we think are pretty much the difference makers in this election, these voters, you have to persuade them to participate,” he says. “This is going to be a back-loaded election for when people start to pay attention. They are largely a younger, more diverse set of people who voted for us last time, who lean Democrat. They hate Trump. They are really hard to reach. And there’s just more of those this time.” A related task is neutralizing the deluge of Republican disinformation. “At the close of any campaign, I know my candidate is in trouble if key parts of the electorate are awash in more negative than positive information about my candidate,” a top Democratic strategist says. “And right now, particularly younger voters of color on social media, they’re hearing more negative than positive information about Joe Biden. How do they turn that?”

Massive spending is part of the answer. But the campaign believes the cash must be spread on a wider array of formats than ever before and in creative ways. So when Biden visited a North Carolina home in March, Flaherty’s team enlisted the family’s 13-year-old son to post a video on TikTok, generating more than five million views across a range of sites, the kind of reach a conventional rally doesn’t produce. The White House has bolstered the president’s online presence by encouraging the work of independent liberal influencers, including Aaron Rupar and Ron Filipkowski, who have driven news cycles by circulating video clips of Trump’s stumbles and incendiary comments. Biden’s team is also investing heavily in first-person testimonial ads from ordinary Americans. “Having elected officials give speeches or be on Sunday talk shows is important,” says Roger Lau, who was Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager in 2020 and who now works closely with the Biden effort as deputy executive director of the Democratic National Committee. “But finding that nurse in Nevada who can talk about why capping the cost of insulin at 35 bucks a month is important to their families because Filipinos have a much higher rate of type two diabetes than other communities—that kind of video, digital, and social content, it just cuts through in a totally different way.”

Flaherty comes across as ebullient and exhausted, which is understandable given that he’s crafting in-real-life organizing plans at the same time he’s trying to counteract the Laura Loomers of the world online. His digital turf overlaps with his more experimental turf, relational organizing. “You have to get people to share content through their friends and family, trusted messengers,” Flaherty says. “This is important because of what I think is the second trend that is different from ’20. In 2022, half of the content shared on Instagram was in private. So if you’re running a digital strategy that is aimed just at reaching people in their feeds, you’re missing where a lot of conversation on the internet is happening.”

[...] While Biden’s Gaza-fueled problems with younger voters have likely been overstated, the conventional wisdom has been understating the damage the war could cause the president with swing voters—and not because of their allegiances to Israel or Palestine. The conflict itself fueled a sense that the world remains volatile, though it was still happening at a distance, literally and politically. Now campus skirmishes have made the mess domestic, and the president’s brand is all about delivering calm. “Biden has got to be seen as the reasonable guy who gets shit done, where Trump is a madman,” a top Democratic strategist says. “You can’t do that when you’ve got chaos on the southern border or chaos on campuses.”

The Biden administration has put together a compelling record in some big-picture ways, including the revival of the economy, the defense of Ukraine, and advances in the battle against climate change. The campaign’s challenge is to translate the president’s record into gains that voters recognize in their everyday lives. “If we’re able to frame the president’s accomplishments in the face of Republican extremist obstructionism,” Tyler says, “you actually have a fantastic story to tell. I mean, I’ll talk about Black folks, for example, right? Since before the pandemic, Black wealth is up 60%, highest rate of small business growth for Black-owned businesses in a generation, cutting Black child poverty in half through the child tax credit before MAGA Republicans ripped it away, which Joe Biden is going to bring back in a second term to make permanent.”

There are also large vulnerabilities in Biden’s first-term record: the suffocatingly high price of housing and the immigration crisis, to pick two. But presidential elections are weird, unique animals that more often turn on personality than on policy, on what Americans are feeling they need in the White House as much as what might objectively be best for the country. Mood is a powerful force in national elections, and the Biden campaign has identified an intriguing, and ominous, headwind. “We don’t like to talk about the fact that COVID still has an impact,” a senior strategist says. “It’s easy to kind of be nostalgic for a time before COVID, to remember, ‘Oh, well, the economy was better, or I felt like prices were better.’ And you don’t hear Trump every day. People are not viscerally feeling how they felt when he was a leader, because he’s been silent for lots of reasons. So we have a lot of work to do. Now, it just so happens that Trump says such crazy stuff all the time that we have ample opportunity.” Everyone at Biden HQ is well aware of the possible consequences, both for the country and for themselves, of Trump winning and turning the craziness into policy. “The people behind him are very well organized,” a Biden campaign operative says. “It can feel like an abstraction, but actually there are people I know, and myself, who would be targets.”

Vanity Fair has a story on the Biden campaign’s re-election team that is navigating tough headwinds to get Joe Biden re-elected.

[influencermagazineuk]

Keir Starmer Authorizes Use of British Missiles for Strikes Inside Russia

The announcement was made during a meeting between the new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the NATO summit in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. The decision to authorize the use of Storm Shadow missiles, welcomed by Ukraine, marks a hawkish shift from the previous Conservative government's policy. John Healey, the new Defence Secretary, signaled the move but declined to discuss "operational arrangements." He told Sky News that Britain would do everything possible to support Ukraine in repelling Putin's invasion. In Washington, Mr. Healey stated, "We provide weapons and equipment where we can to help them defend themselves. As with any nation in conflict, we require that war is conducted according to the rules of the Geneva Convention, as mandated by international law." https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1811099652625773036?s=08 However, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, responded to the news by stating, "If this is so then, of course, this is another absolutely irresponsible step towards escalating tensions and seriously escalating the situation." He told Reuters, "We will be watching this very thoroughly and respond accordingly." The significant announcement was a key aspect of a NATO summit with multiple distinct focuses. The summit, which brought together leaders from the 32-member states, concludes on Thursday and marks the 75th anniversary of the defense alliance. In a lengthy declaration, the alliance's members announced that Ukraine is on an "irreversible" path to NATO membership. This wording is important to the Ukrainian government but is likely to agitate Moscow. "We fully support Ukraine's right to choose its own security arrangements and decide its own future, free from outside interference. Ukraine's future is in NATO," the declaration stated. It continued: "As Ukraine continues this vital work, we will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership. We reaffirm that we will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met." Defence Secretary John Healey emphasized that the UK should be "the leading European nation in NATO" and must take a leading role in supporting Ukraine. In a rare signal of political continuity regarding the supply of weapons to Ukraine, he said: "The Sunak pledge comes with the Starmer guarantee of delivery." When asked about the prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency, Defence Secretary John Healey made cautiously measured remarks, suggesting that more "heavy lifting" could be required. "Whoever is elected to the White House, we must acknowledge that American priorities are likely to increasingly focus on the Indo-Pacific region and other parts of the globe," he stated. "As a consequence, European nations within NATO must take on more responsibility and leadership roles that we traditionally relied on the Americans to fulfill." Behind closed doors, European diplomats based in Washington express more candid views, suggesting that NATO's current gradual rebalancing of power could potentially shift dramatically away from US dominance if Donald Trump were to secure a second term. The NATO summit has been overshadowed by concerns surrounding President Biden's agility and perceived cognitive decline. Calls from his friend and megadonor George Clooney for Biden to step aside as a candidate have added significant pressure. Today, Senate Democrats will have a lunch meeting with key Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, along with Biden-Harris campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon. Hours before the president's rare news conference to conclude the NATO summit, anticipation builds as it represents a significant opportunity for him to demonstrate his capability once more. During his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer in the Oval Office, the president appeared tired but managed to navigate the meeting without any notable slip-ups. This encounter marked the midpoint of Sir Keir's successful visit to Washington, described by UK diplomatic sources as highly successful. The timing was fortuitous for the three top ministers of the new British administration to meet many of their counterparts in one location during the first week of their government. Sir Keir, along with Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Defence Secretary John Healey, frequently appeared together as a trio. They visited Capitol Hill, where they engaged with leaders from both sides of the political spectrum. Read the full article

[gerdfeed]

What they're saying: Biden campaign official Jen O'Malley Dillon, in a memo Saturday, said "the beltway class is counting Joe Biden out" but that "data in the battleground states ... tells a different story.

Democrats “freaking out” about having to campaign with Biden after debate fiasco

[deblala]

EXCLUSIVE: Biden Campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon Caught on Tape Admitting That Granting Amnesty To Illegal Immigrants Helped Democrat Voter Registration Efforts - National File

https://nationalfile.com/exclusive-biden-campaign-chair-jen-omalley-dillon-caught-on-tape-admitting-that-granting-amnesty-to-illegal-immigrants-helped-democrat-voter-registration-efforts/

[gettothestabbing]

The decision is in keeping with former president Barack Obama's proud tradition of hiring corporate lobbyists—despite explicitly campaigning against the influence of such lobbyists in Washington. Terrell is merely the latest former lobbyist to earn a senior role in the Biden administration.

Biden's incoming chief of staff, Ron Klain, previously lobbied on behalf of U.S. Airways, AOL Time Warner, Fannie Mae, and ImClone, a pharmaceutical company whose CEO was convicted of fraud. His deputy chief of staff, Jen O'Malley Dillon, cofounded an "integrated strategy and marketing agency" that was recently hired to represent private equity firms. The incoming counselor to the president, Steve Ricchetti, previously lobbied for AT&T, Eli Lily, and the American Bankers Association.