Celebrities give Biden a hand on campaign trail
Poised WILMINGTON, DEL.— over the piano, Carole King was set to play “I Feel the Earth Move” during a recent virtual fundraiser for Joe Biden when the Democratic presidential nominee himself beat her to it.
“Onmy playlist, Carole!” Biden proclaimed, holding up his phone and letting a few seconds of the song blast.
“Oh, well, I’ll just sit back and let you play your playlist,” King said with a laugh.
The four-time Grammy winner isn’t the only Biden playlist mainstay helping his campaign against President Donald Trump. Jimmy Buffett noted that “Come Monday” wasamongthe hits stored on Biden’s phone before singing it at a recent fundraiser. And James Taylor told another group that he learned to play “America the Beautiful” for President Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration, when Biden was sworn in for four more years as vicepresident.
With in-person campaigning largely suspended, a parade of movie and TV stars, pop icons and sports standouts are helping Biden raise money and energize supporters as campaign surrogates. Events thisweek with celebrities and advocates including actress Alyssa Milano are as counter-programming to the Republican National Convention.
“We’re just flooding the zone as much as possible,” said Michelle Kwan, Biden’s surrogate director and an Olympic silver and bronze medalist figure skater who held a similar post for Hillary Clinton in 2016. “Our artists and actors who are surrogates, they tend to be at home so their availability and their schedule has opened up(and) they’re willing to do more things.”
Biden’s campaign nowhas a team of 15 staffers dedicated to organizing surrogate activities.
Republicans point to the events as evidence that Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, are closer to Hollywood than the heartland. Speaking at the RNC this week, party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel noted that actress Eva Longoria, knownfor her role on “Desperate Housewives,” moderated one night the Democratic convention.
“Well, I’m actually a real housewife and a mom from Michigan with two wonderful kids in public school who happens to be only the second woman in 164 years to run the Republican Party,” McDaniel said.
Still, Biden has gone beyond celebrities in search of campaign surrogates. He’s enlisted the help of nearly all of the 20-plus Democrats he beat during the primary. And Obama has taken a more aggressive role in supporting his former vice president.
The campaign often pairs celebrities with lesser-known officials fromall levels of government to make personalized pitches to voters, especially when Biden himself isn’t able to attend an event.
The campaign also holds events partnering some of its staffers with celebrities so that discussions on policy reach audiences that may not be closely following the presidential race, deliberately blurring the line between pop culture and politics even more.