It’s time for the 2024 presidential campaign, as Joe Biden’s team unveiled its re-election strategy, arguing that it’s not about the candidate’s age, but what he will do for the country.
The battle against Donald Trump begins as Biden moves to address concerns about his physical endurance. His reelection team is planning a month of high-energy events for the 81-year-old incumbent president. Officials said the issue is not the age of the candidates — Trump is 77 — but the age of their ideas.
It will be “not a contrast in ages — it will be a contrast in the era of the candidates’ ideas,” Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, said in a briefing call with reporters.
“It will be a contrast of ideas, not a contrast of age,” he said.
President Joe Biden will kick off after his State of the Union address
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will visit every battleground state this month, his campaign announced Friday, in a barnstorming campaign event to signal that the general election has begun.
His campaign has dubbed March the “month of action.”
The president will be in Pennsylvania on Friday and Georgia on Saturday. Next week he will campaign in New Hampshire on Monday, Wisconsin on Wednesday and Michigan on Thursday. Harris visits Arizona on Friday and Nevada on Saturday.
Biden’s cabinet will also take action. The secretaries of the Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy and Veterans Affairs will hit the road to talk about what the Biden administration has accomplished.
After Biden’s energetic State of the Union address, where the president made only one major stumble, his reelection team outlined their plans for victory in November.
His campaign team argued that they are better positioned for the election and blasted Trump and the Republican National Committee for dealing with “infighting and scandals” while paying Trump’s legal bills.
“They’re in a situation where there’s infighting and scandal in battleground states that are critical to winning this election,” said Republican campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon.
The Biden campaign has $130 million in the bank, while Trump faced more than $540 million in legal payouts and millions more in legal fees.
“The resources aren’t there for them,” O’Malley Dillon said.
But Trump leads in the majority of polls on the 2024 matchup. And Biden faces a 56% disapproval rating Five Thirty-eight poll averagealong with the questions about his physical abilities.
And Trump has had a good week with the Supreme Court ruling that he remains on the ballot and the Supreme Court deciding in April to hear his argument for presidential immunity, delaying a trial or verdict in the many cases against him until after the elections in November.
Donald Trump is leading in a majority of polls on the 2024 presidential race
Vice President Kamala Harris will also hit the campaign trail
Trump faces federal and state charges in Georgia over his actions to overturn the 2020 presidential results. And he faces federal charges related to classified documents found in his Mar-a-Lago home.
The Biden campaign claims the former president will be distracted by legal issues and has shown no interest in expanding his voter base.
“We know he lost in 2020. And so, to win, he must expand his voter base to find new people who want to be with him. And that’s not something he’s shown he’s really focused on. You saw Nikki Haley come out and leave the race this week. And instead of wrapping his arms around them, as we certainly have done, Trump is really mocking her supporters and suggesting, whether it’s the donors or the supporters, that he doesn’t need their votes,” O’Malley said Dillon.
After Haley dropped out of the Republican primaries, Biden praised her “courage” to challenge Trump and then made an effort for her supporters.
“Donald Trump has made it clear that he does not want Nikki Haley’s supporters. “I want to be clear: there is a place for them in my campaign,” he said.
Many of Haley’s voters described their support for her more as a vote against Trump.
Haley did not endorse Trump in her remarks Wednesday announcing her departure from the presidential race.
Instead, she said the former president must earn her support and that of her voters.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond who did not support him. And I hope he does,” she said.
Trump also made a joke to Haley supporters, but he insulted the former South Carolina governor and noted that he “trampled” her.
He said he would like to invite “all of Haley’s supporters to join the greatest movement in our nation’s history. BIDEN IS THE ENEMY, HE IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!’
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden at their campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del.
The Biden campaign argues that their focus on the ground is to turn out voters, many of whom have expressed dismay that the 2024 election is a repeat of the 2020 presidential race.
“Trump needs money, he is really behind in building the infrastructure you would expect from a former president. He’s really not focused on building new people on his side,” O’Malley Dillon said.
The campaign is investing heavily in advertising, volunteers and voter drives to get their supporters to the polls.
“We are confident that this race will be one on the ground, between key states that are at the heart of our multiple pathways to 270 (electoral votes), and everything we are doing this month to get the general election underway is based on that. starting point,” said campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
The Biden campaign is also planning a $30 million, six-week advertising campaign that will target swing voters and blocs such as Hispanic, African American and Asian voters.
“We will spend more in the next six weeks than we did in all of 2023 to break through our fragmented media environment,” said deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty. “We will reach voters through television, connected TV and other digital platforms.”