Biden campaign touts it has resources ‘to go wide,' 'go deep’
Presidential campaign enters stretch run toward Election Day
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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign says it’s “in a very good place” as the race for the White House enters the two-month stretch until Election Day.
“At the end of the day, campaigns are about addition, about growth,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon highlighted in a briefing with political reporters from multiple news organizations, including Fox News. “By the numbers, we are well-positioned for where we need to be.”
BIDEN BRINGS IN A RECORD SHATTERING FUNDRAISING HAUL
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O’Malley Dillon was confident that the Biden campaign is achieving its goal of having “as many pathways to victory, to 270 electoral votes as possible and to make sure that we are maintaining those pathways for as long as possible.”
And pointing to the campaign’s blockbuster fundraising -- they hauled in a record-shattering $364.5 million in August -- she touted that “we're gonna have the resources not just to go wide on our map, but also to go deep within those states.”
O’Malley Dillon stressed that “we will take no vote for granted” and acknowledged that “we know this race will continue to tighten.”
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Mike Donilon, who’s been a close adviser and consultant to the former vice president for nearly four decades, spotlighted the current state of the race between Biden and President Trump. An average of the latest national public opinion polls compiled by Real Clear Politics indicates Biden leading the president 49.6% to 42.6%.
“Typically, the vice president polls are pretty close to 50% nationwide. And the president typically polls somewhere around 40 to 43. Now, that is an extraordinarily low number for an incumbent president. And it's not really focused on much. And that's where his number has been for some time,” Donilon emphasized.
Donilon called the president’s poll position “a pretty strong indication of where the race is.”
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“If you're in the situation that the Trump campaign is in, one of their real clear imperatives was they were going to have to tighten the gap and move his vote into the mid-40s to high 40s coming out the conventions. So that didn't happen,” he argued.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN BULLISH POST CONVENTIONS
Presidential elections where an incumbent president is running for another term in the White House are often a referendum on that president and the job he’s done in office. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and the cratering of the nation’s economy in the late winter and early spring, the Biden-Trump showdown has focused on the president’s handling of both crises.
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But the president in recent weeks has increasingly offered a law-and-order message as he’s shined a spotlight on the unrest and violence accompanying nationwide protests this summer over police brutality against minorities and the racial inequities.
Pointing to the coronavirus and the economy, Donilon insisted “this is where the public is. This is their focus. This is what they believe this election is about. And the president refuses to accept that. He will not address the central issue in this campaign. And it's a huge problem for him because that is where the voters are. And that is where we are running our campaign. We are speaking to the voters where they are.”
Donilon charged that “the president, as everyone knows, desperately tried to reshape this race and try to reformulate it as a law and order campaign, that has been his overwhelming focus now for several weeks. And there was a lot of speculation that when he did that, that that would work to his benefit. And they drive the electorate there. And that really didn't happen."
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O’Malley Dillon spotlighted that the Biden coalition of Black and Latino voters, younger voters and females remains strong -- has made inroads among seniors and disaffected voters -- who cast ballots for Trump in 2016, and that he is currently leading with independents and suburbanites.
She listed numerous numbers as she made the Biden campaign’s case, including showcasing that the campaign now has more than 2,500 staffers in battleground states, has invested $100 million in on-the-ground organizing, and in the ad wars continues “to spend at this stage a far greater and wider footprint than Trump.”
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O’Malley Dillon also touted that the campaign “held over 2.6 million conversations with voters in August -- conducting door-to-door literature drops to reach out to persuadable voters” and is now helping “make sure voters are making a plan to vote, they’re voting early, and we’re helping support them.”
And looking ahead, she said the campaign’s assembled “the largest and best-resourced voter protection program in history.”