Biden plans to visit battleground states and to expand his staff
American president aims to seize the offensive in his campaign
Fresh off his defiant State of the Union address, U.S. President Joe Biden and his senior aides will barnstorm the country starting Friday to aggressively sell his vision for a second term to voters — and warn of the Republican alternative.
The president will try to ride the post-speech momentum to Pennsylvania and Georgia for campaign events in two critical battleground states that he flipped in 2020 and is hoping to keep in his column this November. He’ll move on to Wisconsin and Michigan next week.
Vice-President Kamala Harris is making her own trips, first to Arizona to continue her nationwide tour to promote reproductive rights and then to Nevada for her own campaign stop.
Biden’s reelection campaign was almost giddy after the speech, vowing to stay on the offensive against Donald Trump.
The president’s campaign announced Friday he and Harris will visit every major swing state in coming days, while launching a sixweek, $30-million advertising campaign on TV and digital platforms designed to highlight key themes from the State of the Union to Black, Asian and Hispanic communities. That push will include buys during the NCAA basketball tournament, as Biden’s camp tries to leverage high ratings, like it says it did when airing an ad promising to defend abortion rights during the recent Grammy awards.
By the end of this month, the campaign expects to expand from 100 staff members in seven battleground states to more than 350, while also opening more than 100 field offices. Trump’s campaign is targeting essentially the same areas, looking to flip Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona after 2020 defeats there, while fending off Biden’s efforts to make inroads in North Carolina and Florida.
Biden’s campaign is seeking to hit Trump hard at one of his most vulnerable moments, when the former president may be struggling to consolidate his party after the primary — and as more potentially persuadable voters begin coming to terms with the fact November really will be a 2020 rematch.
“We know that he lost in 2020 and so, in order to win, he’s got to expand his base of voters to find new people to be with him and that is not something that he’s shown that he’s really focused on,” Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a conference call with reporters on Friday.
She also noted that, after former UN ambassador Nikki Haley left the Republican presidential primary race, “instead of wrapping his arms around them — like we certainly have — Trump has really mocked her supporters.”
Biden’s reelection campaign said the first hour of the State of the Union prompted its best fundraising hour since it launched in 2023, but that the next two hours each set new records.
It did not say how much money it actually collected.
Speaking to reporters before taking off for Philadelphia on Friday, Biden did not commit to debating Trump, the likely Republican nominee, during the general election.
“It depends on his behaviour,” Biden said.