Biden campaign on defense after reelection bid faces scrutiny

President Biden’s reelection campaign is on the defensive as it faces scrutiny over whether it’s been aggressive enough against former President Trump, with several prominent Democrats questioning its strategy and structure.

Some of those prominent democrats, most notably former President Obama, have reportedly expressed concerns over the structure of the campaign in which not enough staff are empowered to make decisions who don’t first have to involve a select few in the White House, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

The campaign has pushed back on the criticism, arguing that it’s scaling up at the right time while it looks to make waves in the new year with a more public, full-throated condemnation of Biden’s predecessor.

A Biden campaign speech on Friday showcased that strategy, during which he argued Trump was a threat to democracy to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot, when the former president’s supporters stormed the Capitol.

Biden struck the same aggressive tone in a campaign speech Monday at Mother Emanuel Church, where a white supremacist murdered nine people in 2015.

“Losers are taught to concede when they lose, and he’s a loser,” Biden said of Trump in South Carolina.

In the 24 hours after Biden’s Friday speech, his campaign told The Hill that it raised more than $1 million, which it sees as an indication that focusing on preserving Democracy is a political winner for Biden in 2024.

“[We] are starting this year off being very clear with the American people: our democracy and our hard-earned freedom are on the ballot next November,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told The Hill.

“We are taking that message on early in the year, and will be campaigning on the full set of issues that mobilize the Biden-Harris coalition throughout the year, especially as voters are increasingly thinking about next November,” he said.

The back-to-back speeches come on the heels of some notable scrutiny on the campaign for appearing to be too slow on taking off while Trump’s lead in the GOP primary race continues to dominate his other opponents by double digits. At the same time, Biden’s approval ratings have hit all-time lows.

Former President Obama, one of the Biden campaign’s most influential surrogates, reportedly expressed concerns to Biden at a lunch at the White House in recent weeks, emphasizing the importance of having more top-level decisionmakers in the campaign headquarters or empowering those already there. The reporting also alluded to lingering tensions between the Obama and Biden camps, which dates back to 2016.

Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, defended the campaign’s approach Sunday in response to Obama’s warning, saying the campaign has been “awake” since its launch in April and that Americans are only now tuning in.

“[We’re] in the phase where more Americans are paying attention to what’s going on. And that is why we’re making the choice. The president’s speech at Valley Forge was the first of that. We’ll do it again tomorrow in South Carolina,” Fulks said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Monday also saw the departure of Mitch Landrieu, a key White House official who served as infrastructure czar for the past two years. He will join the campaign as a national co-chair, bringing a big name to the operation in Wilmington, Del.

A source close to the campaign said it is in the middle of staffing up more and defended the timing.

“Everyone I’ve spoken to on the campaign is working diligently on broadening the campaign to win. They’re staffing up at all levels including at the leadership level, which is totally appropriate at this point,” the source said.

Others also defended the campaign after its slow start last year.

“While the campaign may have gotten off to a slow start, it appears to be ratcheting up now, and I think folks around the country are excited and ready to get going,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told The Hill.

Obama’s former senior adviser David Axelrod has repeatedly issued negative commentary over the Biden campaign and its strategies. He said last month that polling showing Biden’s approval rating hitting 37 percent is “very, very dark” for his reelection campaign, and he has suggested Biden step aside and that he has a “50-50 shot” of winning in 2024.

Biden has faced a flurry of tough polls showing him behind Trump and with an approval rating consistently below 40 percent. The aggregation of polls kept by Decision Desk HQ and The Hill shows Trump with a lead of 1.2 percentage points over Biden.

A new poll released Monday showed that Trump’s lead over Biden in some key swing states — Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — has slightly narrowed. Meanwhile, Trump’s lead in Florida and Michigan did not narrow, according to the poll from Redfield & Wilton Strategies, in partnership with The Telegraph.

The Biden campaign released a memo before the new year outlining that it will be scaling up in 2024 and expressing optimism due to its fundraising.

“2024 will be all about scaling up our operation and taking that message directly to the voters that will decide this election. We enter the election year with significant resources thanks to a historic 2023 fundraising program, including a strong [fourth quarter] powered by consistent and stronger-than-expected grassroots support,” campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in the memo.

The campaign is set to release its fourth-quarter fundraising haul, which is reportedly expected to be more than $65 million. In the third quarter, the campaign raised more than $71 million, and in the second it brought in $72 million.

Rodriguez argued in the memo that voters will be engaged come early summer, giving the Biden campaign a few more months to scale up.

“We are using the time we have now to fine-tune these programs and identify new ways of reaching our coalition of voters, so that come early summer, our organizing program is scaling across our battleground states to meaningfully engage our core coalition of voters — at the time we expect that they are increasingly thinking about the election,” she said.