Biden versus Trump: the looming rematch reaches a ‘kick-off’ moment
President Biden’s advisers are looking forward to the upcoming general election battle and are counting on voters to pay more attention to Donald J. Trump, with the president himself even proposing and distributing videos ridiculing the things his Republican rival says to make.
Mr. Trump seizes the opportunity to contrast himself with Mr. Biden, as he did along the Texas-Mexico border last week, and trusts that Mr. Biden has the tougher job: convincing voters that their views on how country is performing poorly.
With the former president expected to score big victories on Super Tuesday and Mr Biden preparing to deliver his State of the Union address on Thursday, this week is expected to clarify the coming choice for an American public that in many ways still remains in disbelief that 2024 is heading into a 2020 rematch.
Both campaigns see the coming days as a critical period that will set the tone and determine the first contours of the presidential campaign.
By most accounts, Mr. Biden is starting from behind.
A New York Times/Siena College poll last weekend showed Trump with a 48 to 43 percent lead among registered voters. Mr. Biden has been hampered by widespread concerns about his age and his handling of the job, rifts in the Democratic coalition over Israel and a general sourness about the state of the nation.
But Mr. Biden also enters the expected election battle with some key structural advantages, including a significant financial advantage and a lack of distraction on the scale of Mr. Trump’s four criminal trials.
Quentin Fulks, Mr. Biden’s top deputy campaign manager, said the campaign was preparing for a week that will functionally serve as “the kickoff to the general election.”
“The problem we’re facing is that a number of people are telling us that they are not aware that this is a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Mr. Fulks said. “March will be our moment to make that choice crystal clear.”
The month begins with Super Tuesday and will end with jury selection in Trump’s first criminal trial, in New York, over hush money payments secretly made to a pornographic film star in the heat of the 2016 campaign. In between, Mr. Trump is expected to effectively clinch the nomination and complete a takeover that will give him operational control of the Republican National Committee.
“Whatever advantage they have in timing, we will far outweigh the passion of our supporters and our ability to organize them,” said Chris LaCivita, one of two Trump campaign co-managers who helped Mr. plan is to install as leader. The RNC polling shows that Trump is doing a better job of uniting his 2020 coalition than Mr. Biden so far. “They have a motivation problem,” Mr. LaCivita said. “We do not.”
However, Mr Trump has legal problems.
His team was elated last week when the US Supreme Court set a timeline for hearing Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for his actions after his 2020 election loss in a bid to stay in power. The Supreme Court schedule extends into late summer, with Trump’s federal trial at the earliest.
Nikki Haley is still in the Republican primary, but polls predict a defeat on Super Tuesday, with fifteen states in play. Mr Trump’s team believes he can surpass a majority of delegates and secure the nomination as early as March 12. On Friday, the Republican National Committee will meet in Texas and is expected to endorse Mr. Trump’s new choice to lead the party, Michael Whatley. .
“We’re going to have 100 percent control over the mechanisms we need,” Mr. LaCivita said.
The Biden team has long circled next Thursday’s State of the Union address as a pivot point, knowing that it will most likely be the president’s largest audience until the summer convention and a chance to sell both a skeptical American public on his performance to be completed as a second question. term agenda which has thus far been sparse in terms of details.
After the speech, Mr. Fulks said, the Biden campaign will unleash a “show of force,” with Mr. Biden’s first two stops already announced as events in Atlanta and Philadelphia.
Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the first lady, Jill Biden, are all expected to fan out on the campaign trail. One sign of the Biden campaign’s early organizing advantage: The party, along with the party, plans to open 31 general election offices in the key battleground of Wisconsin alone over the next 30 days.
Mr. Trump has not yet announced any staff for the state’s general election.
The first lady’s appearance on Saturday in downtown Tucson, Arizona, was a warning sign of the protests that were likely to greet the administration’s leading figures on the trail. Her ‘Women for Biden’ event was interrupted four times in 15 minutes by dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters objecting to her husband’s support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Biden team has done that staged events to prevent such outbursts.
Mr. Trump arranged for his own presidential photo op at the border at the same time as Mr. Biden’s official visit. Mr Trump’s trip was announced days before Mr Biden’s. In two Texas border towns, both men chatted with law enforcement officers, Mr. Biden indoors, Mr. Trump outside overlooking the Rio Grande — and Mr. Trump’s team expressed satisfaction with the outcome.
“At a time when images are important, it’s probably a fight they won’t fight again,” Mr. LaCivita said.
But in a twist, many Democrats are now hoping for greater coverage of Mr. Trump. The current Biden team thinks the more Trump the better, to remind voters what they didn’t like about him in the first place. Some Biden officials welcomed the national television networks publishing Super Tuesday results with special attention, saying more voters would be grappling with the reality of a Biden-Trump contest.
Mr. Trump’s advisers see a benefit to his time out of the spotlight. Social media platforms’ decision to ban him following the January 6, 2021 riot has meant that his all-caps screeds are now limited to his Truth Social website. That has kept some of his most raw and inflammatory commentary confined to the conservative ecosystem, where only his supporters consume it.
To highlight some of Mr. Trump’s more inflammatory comments, the Biden team has begun producing split-screen videos in which the president watches them on an iPad and then delivers a pithy response. The president would enjoy making these videos, according to three people familiar with the matter. Mr. Biden himself had during a recent fundraiser the specific video pitched In response to Trump comparing himself to Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident who died in prison, two of the people said.
One concern that Mr. Trump’s allies have had for months is that he will be outpaced — and thus outpaced — by the Biden campaign, the Democratic Party and allied groups.
The main super PAC working with Mr Biden has already announced a $250 million allocation for television and digital advertising, starting in August. Trump’s super PAC had less than $20 million on hand as of February, paying back $5 million each month into an account that paid for Trump’s massive legal fees.
Taylor Budowich, the CEO of the Trump super PAC, which is giving briefings to several of his top donors at Mar-a-Lago on Super Tuesday, said his group had the easier political job despite the financial disparity.
“He has the job of convincing people what they believe and think is not true,” Mr. Budowich said of Mr. Biden and voters’ dissatisfaction with the country’s direction. “Our job is to convince people that it is true – and the man currently in charge is responsible for that.”
Mr. Trump will continue to talk about the economy, immigration, energy and, as he puts it, the “weaponization of the government” against him through four indictments.
Mr. Biden’s team sees abortion and Mr. Trump’s appointment of Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade — and the Alabama court’s recent ruling on in vitro fertilization — as powerful messages. The president’s State of the Union address is expected to include an economic agenda that contrasts with Mr. Trump’s.
Mr. Trump’s team sees immigration as a particularly resonant issue that should be pressed on black voters in major cities where there is an influx of migrants from the southern border.
The super PAC supporting Mr. Trump will begin running ads on black radio stations in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania on Monday, highlighting the migrant crisis and Mr. Biden’s support for transgender protections. Despite a long history of racist statements, Trump is performing better in polls with black voters than in his previous campaigns. The Biden campaign has tried to shore up its support for Black voters with its own ads.
Trump’s legal exposure is likely to dominate the news in the coming weeks as his trial in New York is set to begin on March 25. Privately, several Trump allies marveled at the timing breaks he has had during the trial. The Manhattan trial could be the only pre-election trial he faces.
However, the case is expected to last six weeks, taking him off the campaign trail for days at a time. A person familiar with internal discussions who was not authorized to speak publicly said Trump would most likely campaign over the weekend and use Wednesdays — when the trial is expected to pause each week — for fundraising or meet advisors.
No presidential candidate has ever campaigned under such conditions.
Kellen Browning contributed reporting from Tucson, Ariz., and Michael Gold from Eagle Pass, Texas.