Amid NBC News reportage that his family is hashing out an exit plan from the 2024 race for the COVID-stricken chief executive, one of his chief lieutenants is telling the same media company that President Biden is “in it to win it.”
The mixed messaging continues after weeks of pressure, since last month’s debate, on the Delaware Democrat to exit stage left.
“We are built for the close election that we are in and we see the path forward,” Jen O’Malley Dillon said Friday on “Morning Joe.”
“The president is the leader of our campaign and of the country, and he is clearly in our impression and what we’ve built and in our engagement with voters, he’s the best person to take on Donald Trump and prosecute that case and present his vision,” she added.
White House spox Andrew Bates also denied the president is changing course, despite reported pressure from former President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), along with more than two dozen Democratic legislators on record who are looking for the octogenarian to find an exit from the race.
“That is not happening, period,” he told NBC. “The individuals making those claims are not speaking for his family or his team — and they will be proven wrong. Keep the faith.”
Biden battleground director Dan Kanninen is also claiming, in a state-of-the-race memo distributed to media Friday, that the president will be the nominee when delegates meet in Chicago.
“At the Democratic National Convention next month, the choice will become even more clear for the American people. You’ll hear a positive future for the country: better jobs, safer communities, and a steadfast commitment to protecting your rights. And Joe Biden will be there as the official Democratic nominee,” he said.
And despite data showing Trump is leading Biden in every swing state, the Biden camp believes it has a path in battlegrounds where it’s getting battered in polls. The strategy, per Kanninen: “Focus on the issues that matter most to the electorate in the battleground states.”
The Biden team also has more than 1,000 staffers in seven swing states, with plans to add more.
Ad buys are also key to hitting issues like the oft-discussed think-tank proposal Project 2025, which the Biden camp continues to link to the Trump campaign without evidence, and abortion. A TV spot up Friday in Atlanta, Raleigh, Charlotte, Philly, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Milwaukee media markets targets “voters of color across the battleground states” on the subject of “black maternal health” in a post-Dobbs world where abortion regulations are left to the states.
And Team Biden is touting endorsements that project unity — but caveats abound.
BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political arm, endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket Friday, saying it would be “mobilizing the community” on behalf of the beleaguered incumbent.
But the CHC isn’t speaking with one voice, it turns out. Illinois’ Chuy Garcia joined three other Dems in a statement urging Biden to stand down Friday, roughly an hour after the Biden camp trumpeted what might have been a pro forma PAC endorsement in normal times.