President Biden’s advisers are eager for the coming general-election fight and counting on voters to start paying more attention to Donald J. Trump, with the president himself even proposing and dashing off videos to ridicule the things his Republican rival says.
Trump is relishing the chance to contrast himself with Biden, as he did along the Texas-Mexico border last week, and trusting that Biden has the tougher job: convincing voters that their views of how the country is doing are wrong.
With the former president expected to rack up big wins on Super Tuesday and 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 remains in disbelief that 2024 is headed toward a 2020 rematch.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling on Monday keeping Trump on the ballot after some states sought to bar him for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol kicked off a critical period that both campaigns see setting the tone and defining the early contours of the presidential campaign.
By most accounts, Biden begins behind.
A New York Times/Siena College survey over the weekend showed Trump ahead 48 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Biden is hampered by widespread concerns about his age and his handling of the job, fractures in the Democratic coalition over Israel and a general sourness about the state of the nation.
But Biden also enters the expected general election contest with a number of key structural advantages, including a sizable financial edge and a lack of distractions on the scale of Trump’s four criminal trials.
Quentin Fulks, Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, said the campaign had been preparing for a week that will functionally serve as “the kickoff to the general election.”
“The problem that we’ve been facing is that a number of people are telling us that they’re not aware that this is a choice between Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Fulks said.
The month begins with Super Tuesday and is set to end with jury selection in Trump’s first criminal trial, in New York, for hush-money payments made secretly to a pornographic film star in the heat of the 2016 campaign. In between, 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 may have in timing, we will far surpass in the passion of our supporters and our ability to organize them,” said Chris LaCivita, one of two co-managers of the Trump campaign whom Trump plans to install as chief operating officer of the R.N.C. Polls show Trump so far better uniting his 2020 coalition than Biden. “They have a motivation problem,” LaCivita said. “We don’t.”
Trump, however, does have legal problems.
His team was elated last week when the US Supreme Court laid out a timeline for hearing Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for his actions after his 2020 election loss to try to stay in power. The Supreme Court’s schedule pushes until late summer at the earliest Trump’s federal trial.
Nikki Haley is still running in the Republican primary but polls predict a wipeout on Super Tuesday, with 15 states in play. Trump’s team believes he could surpass a majority of delegates and secure the nomination as early as March 12. On Friday, the Republican National Committee is meeting in Texas and is expected to ratify Trump’s new pick to lead the party, Michael Whatley.
“We’re going to get 100 percent control of the mechanics we need,” LaCivita said.
The Biden team has long circled this Thursday’s State of the Union address as a pivot point, knowing it will be the president’s largest audience most likely until the summer convention and a chance both to sell a skeptical American public on his accomplishments and fill in a second-term agenda that has so far been scarce on details.
After the speech, Fulks said, the Biden campaign will unleash a “show of force,” with Biden’s first two stops already announced as events in Atlanta and Philadelphia.
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 edge: It is planning, along with the party, to open 31 general election offices in the next 30 days in the key battleground of Wisconsin alone.
The first lady’s Saturday appearance in downtown Tucson, Ariz., offered a warning sign of the protests 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 who object to her husband’s support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Biden team has stage-managed events to avoid such outbursts.
Trump arranged his own presidential-style photo op at the border at the same time as Biden’s official visit. Trump’s trip was announced days before Biden’s. In two Texas border cities, both men chatted with law enforcement officers, Biden indoors, Trump outside overlooking the Rio Grande — and Trump’s team pronounced itself pleased with the result.
“In an age where visuals matter, it’s probably a fight they won’t pick again,” LaCivita said.
But in a twist, many Democrats are now hoping for increased coverage of Trump. The current Biden team thinking is the more Trump the better, in order to remind voters about what they didn’t like about him in the first place. Some Biden officials welcomed national television networks carrying Super Tuesday’s results with special coverage because more voters would grapple with the reality of a Biden vs. Trump contest.
The New York Times
