Washington - President Joe Biden announced Tuesday he is running for re-election in 2024, plunging at the record age of 80 into a ferocious new White House campaign "to finish the job."
"Every generation has a moment where they have had to stand up for democracy. To stand up for their fundamental freedoms. I believe this is ours. That's why I'm running for re-election as president of the United States. Join us. Let's finish the job," Biden wrote on Twitter, along with a video.
U.S. President Joe Biden is pairing the veteran advisers who helped him win the White House once with a newer generation of diverse leadership for his 2024 re-election campaign.
Biden aides see former President Donald Trump as the early front-runner for the Republican nomination, as do most Republican voters, polls show.
Biden aides say they take the challenge of running against Trump seriously, but feel they have the playbook to beat him again, including courting the support of Black and Latino voters and winning states that once were Republican strongholds. Biden won 306 electoral college votes, 74 more than Trump, and over 7 million more popular votes than Trump when he beat him in the 2020 election. The White House and Democratic National Committee (DNC) declined to comment on upcoming personnel announcements for the 2024 campaign. Some key campaign staff and advisers are known:
Biden will appoint Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House official, to run his campaign. She will coordinate with White House senior advisers and oversee an operation likely to spend over $1 billion and hire hundreds of full-time employees.
A prominent Latina political adviser, she is a granddaughter of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, was a deputy campaign manager for Biden in 2020, and advised Vice President Kamala Harris when Harris was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. She is currently the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Latino voter outreach is essential, as Democrats worry the critical swing-state voter base is deserting the party.
Chavez Rodriguez' contacts with local and state governments will help the campaign build from scratch in more than a dozen key swing states.
Biden is pairing Chavez Rodriguez with deputy Quentin Fulks, who ran state campaigns in the crucial battleground of Georgia, a former Republican stronghold that helped cement Biden's 2020 election win. Fulks, who is Black, ran Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock's 2022 re-election campaign that handed Biden's Democrats control of the Senate. He has been a strategist for the abortion rights political action committee EMILY's List and worked for the primary Democratic committee that supports House of Representatives, candidates.
A senior White House adviser and one of the president's longest-serving confidants, Mike Donilon was a top aide to Biden during his 2020 election and helped develop the message that Biden used to defeat Trump.
Then, Biden ran on "restoring the soul of the nation," warning of the threat he felt Trump posed to civility and American democratic norms. That message, crafted nearly two years earlier, was pitched perfectly for U.S. political dynamics in November 2020, Biden aides say in retrospect.
In fact, Biden repeated it in a campaign video announcing his reelection plans Tuesday. Donilon is also an expert on polling and political advertising.
The White House counselor to Biden, Steve Richetti, served as a legislative aide to former President Bill Clinton and as chief of staff to Biden during his vice presidential years.
A longtime Washington lobbyist, his personal relationship with the president means he's likely to be part of a small group of people in the room when serious choices are made. He is likely to weigh in on policy given his role in congressional negotiations as well as personnel and organizational matters. Former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and current deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, also part of Biden's inner circle during the campaign, are expected to advise the president. MICHAEL TYLER Michael Tyler, a Democratic communications veteran who worked for one-time presidential contender Senator Cory Booker and the DNC, is being considered for campaign communications director.
He also advised a LeBron James-led political group focused on increasing Black voter engagement in the 2020 election. More recently, he was a leader of the close but ultimately unsuccessful bid by Atlanta to host the 2024 Democratic convention.
The Deputy White House Chief of staff Jen O'Malley Dillon, the campaign manager behind Biden's 2020 success, is expected to be heavily involved in the 2024 race.
The first female presidential campaign manager for a winning Democratic ticket, O'Malley Dillon reinvented the 2020 campaign for the COVID pandemic and mapped out Democrats' unexpected wins in Arizona and Georgia.
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