When I worked for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, we favored a "Rose Garden" re-election strategy that embraced the grand trappings and benefits of incumbency and put off getting into the messiness of campaigning as long as possible. But given Americans' overall dissatisfaction and grumpiness, the Biden team has smartly flipped the script and taken critical steps to launch the general election and engage with voters early, especially in battleground states. Here's what you need to know.
Starting with President Joe Biden's Jan. 5 unofficial launch of the campaign in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the president has made eight trips to five electorally critical states: three to Pennsylvania; two to South Carolina, which has a Democratic primary Saturday; and one trip each to North Carolina, Wisconsin and Virginia. He's also expected to visit the early primary states of Nevada and Michigan soon. The vice president has traveled to the same six and visited the battleground state of Georgia, too. The trips seem to be having an effect. After having trailed former President Donald Trump in 2023 polling, Biden now leads in Pennsylvania.
Biden connects best one-on-one, so he's been getting out from behind the podium to engage voters directly on these trips. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, he visited a coffee shop to talk about small business. In North Carolina, he met with a father whose student loans had been forgiven under a Biden administration program, resulting in this TikTok video, which garnered more than 10 million views. That's the kind of amplification a campaign dreams about — and a great contrast with Trump, whom we now only see at campaign rallies or in courtrooms.
