Biden power players juggling campaign, White House

With less than 10 months to go until the 2024 election, the nerve center of President Biden’s bid for a second term is stationed not at his campaign’s headquarters in Delaware but within feet of the Oval Office.

The president and his chief strategist, Mike Donilon, have repeatedly discussed when to move him over to the campaign — perhaps after the 2022 midterm elections, then after the 2023 off-year elections, and again at the end of 2023. Each time, no move happened after the president told aides he wanted to keep Donilon within walking distance.

Anita Dunn, the longtime Democratic operative who stepped in to help revive Biden’s fledging operation four years ago, is crafting the reelection message again, even as she oversees communications at the White House.

Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s deputy White House chief of staff and former campaign manager, is also splitting her day job with her role as one of the most powerful voices in the campaign.

So far, almost none of the people in the president’s inner circle have left for campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., prompting some donors and strategists to worry that too much of Biden’s team remains cloistered inside the White House.

The situation has led anxious Democrats, including some inside the campaign itself, to prod Biden to step on the gas. That includes former president Obama, who discussed the urgency of the 2024 election and the structure of the president’s campaign with Biden in November, according to several people familiar with the discussion.

The intraparty anxiety has been building for months. In the spring, Biden named Julie Chávez Rodríguez as his campaign manager and dispatched her to his hometown of Wilmington to set up the reelection effort.

Since then, the staff at the headquarters has grown slowly, with about 80 full-time staff members now working there, according to Biden campaign officials.