A look at Biden's anti-Trump battle plan (and where Taylor Swift fits in)

“It's begun, the beginning of the general election,” said Rep. Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a group that of 97 centrist House Democrats. “We have to win this.”

In a race with no historical parallel — a battle between two presidents, one of whom faces 91 criminal charges — Mr. Biden is making an extraordinary gamble, banking on Mr. Trump to remain such an animating force in American life that the current leader of the country can turn around. the 2024 elections resulted in a referendum, not on himself but on his predecessor.

By reviving a version of the argument that worked for them in 2020, Mr Biden's team and his key allies plan to portray Mr Trump as a deadly threat to US government and society civil society, and they are counting on fears of a new turbulent Trump administration to outweigh concerns about Mr Biden's age and vitality. Polls show Biden trailing Trump in a head-to-head battle, with many Democratic voters reluctant to back him again.

The president's aides plan to combine a direct attack on Trump with a strong focus on abortion rights, making the issue emblematic of larger conservative efforts to restrict personal freedoms.

They believe that the more the public sees and hears Mr. Trump, the less likely people will be to vote for him, and the more the Biden campaign will be able to use his words on issues like abortion and health care against him.

Mr. Biden's aides argue that voters remember the events of Jan. 6, 2021, all too well, making the day a touchstone similar to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They think an anti-Trump message about democracy could convince Democratic voters to rally behind Biden and win over independents who supported Trump in 2020 but have disapproved of his behavior since.

The January 6 attack also hangs over the Biden campaign in another way: unlike in 2020, the president and his team believe the end of the election will not be in November, but on January 6, 2025, when Congress will convene the elections. will count. Electoral College votes.

Mr. Biden's team is building a legal strike force in battleground states to prepare for a range of challenges — including issues of basic voting rights, but extending to the certification of elections under the Electoral Count Reform Act, the 2022 federal law which was intended to prevent any repeat of Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Democrats have successfully spread a Trump-centric message even with the former president out of office, including during the 2022 midterm elections and more than two dozen elections last year. Now that it seems likely that he will return to a presidential ticket — and as he continues to shape the direction of Republican politics — key Biden allies see an opening to draw a sharp contrast.

“Once again,” said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, there is a “binary choice: democracy, freedom versus extremism and chaos. Real kitchen table problems that affect people or just nonsense things that they come up with.”

Yet the election will not be about Trump in a vacuum.

Many Democrats remain concerned that focusing their attention on him will fail to energize voters who are already pessimistic about Mr. Biden. Polls show that some of the Black, Latino, young and suburban voters who carried him to victory in 2020 have since turned against him, in part because of doubts about his age, economic record and support for Israel.

Campaign aides and top officials are largely dismissing these concerns, believing that at least attitudes toward the economy will change as it shows more signs of improvement.

To capture the growing number of voters who don't consume news through traditional media, the campaign is looking to reach them on social media, with videos from influencers and even those with smaller followers.

During a stop in North Carolina this month, Mr. Biden paid an hour-long visit to the home of a supporter who had his student loans canceled through a federal program. The man's son later posted a video of Mr. Biden visit on TikTokwhich attracted millions of views – an example of how the campaign hopes to reach voters in new ways.

The campaign has started with conversations with celebrities and social media stars about promoting Mr. Biden on Instagram and TikTok. When Mr. Biden took a fundraising drive through Southern California in December, the campaign made time to meet with influencers and pitch them on posting pro-Biden content. There are also plans, as was first reported on Sunday NBC Newsto hold a fundraiser with two former Democratic presidents: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift, 34, the pop sensation and NFL enthusiast who can sweep millions of supporters aside with an Instagram post or a mid-concert performance. She endorsed Mr Biden in 2020 and last year a single Instagram post from her led to 35,000 new voter registrations. Ms. Swift's fundraising appeals could be worth millions of dollars to Mr. Biden.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a top Biden surrogate, all but begged Ms. Swift to become more involved in Mr. Biden's campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican primary debate in September.

“Taylor Swift is big and unique,” ​​he said. “What she has been able to achieve in encouraging young people to consider that they have a voice and that they should have a choice in the next election, I think is extremely powerful.”

The chatter surrounding Ms. Swift and the potential to achieve her 279 million Instagram followers reached such intensity that the Biden team urged applicants in a job posting on social media not to describe their Taylor Swift strategy — the campaign already had plenty of suggestions. There is one idea that is being thrown around, somewhat in jest: stalling the president Mrs. Swift's Eras Tour.

Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, a key Biden ally, said Democrats needed to push a positive case for the president, reminding voters that there would be tangible changes in their lives — a cap on insulin costs, a road or bridge being repaired for the first time – could be related to the government's performance.

In the 2020 campaign, Mr. Clyburn said, “People voted against it Trump. Our job this time is to convince people to vote for Biden.”

“We just can't rely on this anti-Trump stuff because Trump's supporters are going to be big because they're emotionally connected to Trump,” he continued. “We need to emotionally connect our voters to Biden.”

And Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat running for Senate, said candidates must demonstrate they understand the concerns of voters in their pockets.

“The lesson of the last seven years for us in Michigan, after Trump won, was: a Democrat with outrage is fine — a Democrat with a plan is powerful,” Ms. Slotkin said. “You have to understand the mood of the people on the ground.”

Other Biden supporters argue that voters want to hear not only about his record, but also about what he would do if re-elected.

Rep. Chris Pappas, a New Hampshire Democrat, urged the campaign to outline a “forward-looking vision” of how Biden would address concerns about housing affordability, child care costs and immigration.

“It can't just be about recriticizing the past. It cannot just be about bills that we have passed,” he said. “It should be about responding to the immediate concerns that people have in their daily lives.”

To help allay those Democratic concerns, Mr. Biden sent Jennifer O'Malley Dillon and Mike Donilon, two top White House aides, to Wilmington, Del., to devote their full attention to the campaign. For months, donors and other allies had expressed frustration over an arrangement that left top decision-makers in Biden's campaign in their roles in the White House while top officials in Wilmington had to carry out orders.

The campaign has also responded to complaints about the slow pace of hiring by bringing on a slew of new staff. It now has more than 100 staff, with teams on the ground in six battleground states and South Carolina, where the first certified Democratic primary will be held on Saturday.

Yet many new hires have jobs roughly comparable to what they did at their state party.

In Wisconsin, the six new Biden campaign staffers all came from the state's Democratic Party, and they all still work in the same offices and meeting rooms. The spokesperson for a super PAC behind the effort to write on Biden's behalf about New Hampshire's Democratic primary will be Biden's campaign manager in the state.

Ms. O'Malley Dillon, who led Mr. Biden's 2020 campaign, is widely seen as a stabilizing force and will arrive in Wilmington with decision-making powers that were not granted to the campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez.

Kirk Wagar, a Democratic donor who served as ambassador to Singapore during the Obama administration, said: “Having 100 percent of the mind that Jen O'Malley thinks about the campaign cannot be anything but a great thing.”

Shane Goldmacher reporting contributed.