Joe Biden and his campaign team are holding out hope that they and Donald Trump will face off in a rematch of their 2016 general election.
But after a major governor and senator joined the contest for the Republican presidential nomination this week, and additional GOP heavyweights are considering jumping in, they are likewise leaving nothing to chance.
Fearing that their work may be harder if Trump’s name is not at the head of the Republican ticket, Biden’s embryonic campaign and the Democratic National Committee have been preparing to launch broadsides against a bevy of present and possible GOP competitors.
This week, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s entry into the race, they shifted into high speed in their campaign. Trump and other Republicans made fun of his rocky debut on Twitter Spaces. The Biden team was quick to respond as well, buying Google advertisements for searches like “DeSantis flop” and “DeSantis disaster” and baiting DeSantis with a tweet to its own fundraising website (noting that “this link works”).
While the campaign and the DNC applauded DeSantis’ entry into the race, they also responded to his more substantial attacks. His endorsement of a stringent abortion ban, his support for book bans, and his dispute with Disney over LGTBQ legislation are just a few of the attitudes that have been highlighted in a barrage of attacks and opposition research dumps.
To Democrats, this means they can keep using the same tactic that helped them win seats in the House and Senate in the midterms of 2018.
They’re all quite looney. DNC Chair Jaime Harrison once observed, “I grew up under the Ronald Reagan Republican party that wrapped itself in the American flag.” “Well, freedom is a big aspect of America. We have freedom of expression and freedom of the market. These people represent everything that is wrong with the fight for liberty.
More than a dozen people involved in or adjacent to the campaign were interviewed for this account of the unfolding dynamics of the race; many of them consented to speak freely on the condition of anonymity.
Since Team Biden just formed a month ago with a skeletal crew, the DNC took the lion’s share of the jabs against DeSantis. However, DNC representatives claimed that the party had already strengthened its campaign infrastructure. It has initiated fundraising efforts in all 50 states and has sent surrogates and personnel to accompany DeSantis and other Republicans to events across the country.
To get ready for the anticipated arrival of former Vice President Mike Pence, they have already begun attacking the other Republicans running for governor, such as South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who entered the race just days before DeSantis, and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Biden’s staff is confident that they can link Republicans to the ex-president despite the fact that not all Republicans can be immediately related to aspects of Trump’s record or his participation in fueling the Jan. 6 violence. Workers at the Democratic National Committee have started labelling all Republican candidates as supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) initiatives.
“It’s not a stretch to paint with a broad brush and make the other Republicans out to be ‘Trump Lite,'” said former New York State Democratic Party chairman and veteran Democratic strategist Basil Smikle. Almost all of them have shown their support for him in the past. The administration may also argue generally that the Republicans pose a danger to democracy and the preservation of individual liberty.
DNC staffers are also casting a wide net, looking into the histories of other potential GOP candidates who might not even enter the race, such as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin. Democrats believe that a moderate Republican might be a more formidable opponent in the general election, but that other potential candidates, such as New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, stand little chance of surviving a GOP primary electorate that has moved decisively to the right.
And Biden aides predict that whatever the Republicans pick for president, the same GOP playbook will be used against the president in 2020, including attacks on his age, his son Hunter Biden, and socialism.
Those close to Biden are concerned that the Republicans may nominate an outsider who can capitalise on the anti-incumbent attitude that is widespread in the United States and other democracies during this period of inflation and strife.
Republicans should take note of his dismal approval rating. According to Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, “this is not a president that the American people feel is doing a good job on their behalf.” “Most Americans worry that our country is on the wrong track.”
Reelection campaigns for president are typically framed as “change vs. more of the same,” but if it were Biden vs. Trump again, it would be “more of this same vs. more of that same.”
The dynamics of the election would shift dramatically if Biden faced a candidate other than Trump, turning it into a referendum on the president’s record. It would also bring the president’s age into sharp relief. In contrast to the 81-year-old president, Trump is only three years younger than Biden, and some of the other Republicans are decades younger. This would make for an interesting contrast in a debate next year.
According to Republican strategist Alex Conant, who advised Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, “the framing becomes, ‘Do you want four more years of Biden or something different?'” Everyone has already made up their opinion about Donald Trump, but very few have made up their mind about Ron DeSantis, so the Democrats will have to spend a lot more time attempting to define the competition. And if he’s up against a newcomer, Biden’s age and other weaknesses will look even worse.
Both parties’ operatives emphasise that this is still early in the campaign. Even if Trump faces two or three more criminal indictments in the future, the Biden world sees little to change their view that someone other than Trump will be standing at the end of the primary war.
Three people close to Biden say he told them the ideal time for the Republican Party to move on from Trump was in the weeks following the revolt on January 6. Although he misses the pre-GOP days of his Senate career, Biden now thinks his predecessor’s hold on the Republican base will remain until the upcoming election.
A rematch is something the White House would welcome. Advisers think voters are turned off by Trump’s behaviour, and that most Americans don’t want the instability that marked his administration to resurface. The focus of Biden’s political team is on the independent, swing voters who supported Trump in 2016 but turned sharply against him four years later, particularly the women of the suburbs.
The Biden team wants to know what Trump has done since leaving office to win back those voters. They think he has nothing to offer, citing the uprising in the Capitol, his meal with a white supremacist, and his growing legal trouble as evidence. According to his staff, he shares the same hardline views on abortion and firearms as other Republicans. Even if a criminal charge or two helps Trump win over Republicans in the primary, it is likely to turn off independents and moderates come election time.
However, the electorate is still sharply divided, and both the 2016 and 2020 elections will likely be decided by a slim margin in a few swing states. Trump won over certain minorities in the 2020 election, including people of colour and people of Asian descent. Poll numbers for Biden have been about where they have been for a while, his age is a factor, and the economy is a source of worry for voters.
“His vulnerabilities have to do with his age and whether it will be a pro-Biden vote to go along with an anti-Trump vote,” Smikle said of him. Despite the fact that many Democrats approve of his record, he is not seen as a major mobilising figure by many.
