Dem
51
GOP
49
Some Democrats are getting out their worry beads because Joe Biden's reelection campaign hasn't hired any staff in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. All of these are going to be major battleground states. Biden is trailing both Barack Obama's reelection campaign in 2011 and Donald Trump's reelection campaign in 2019. Both of those campaigns had paid staff in all the battleground states at this point in the election cycle.
Interviews with more than 20 elected Democratic officials and strategists showed that they were worried about activating marginal voters, especially Black and Latino voters. Also, not having a state chair means there is no one to talk to in these states about organizing travel to the state, holding rallies in the state, distributing resources, or working on countering Republican attempts at voter suppression. Pete Giangreco, a longtime Democratic strategist, said: "You have to build an infrastructure to drive [the] message and deliver votes. It's not something you do just on paid communications."
If Biden's approval rating were in the high 50s, instead of the low 40s, and horserace polls showed him 10 points ahead of every Republican, Democratic strategists wouldn't be worried, but low approval, bad polls, and no infrastructure is not usually a winning combination.
Part of the disagreement is how professionals think about strategy. Some think spending money (by hiring lots of staff this early) is a huge waste of resources. They want those pennies saved for spending starting in next summer, when the voters are starting to pay attention. There is also a big internal debate about the value of staff on the ground vs. virtual staff. Some Democrats think the way to reach marginal voters is not to knock on their doors a year before the election, but to advertise on Facebook and TikTok next fall. A campaign spokesman, Kevin Munoz, said: "Every cycle, anonymous sources and pundits vent to reporters, but make no mistake: This campaign is building strategically and aggressively to earn every vote and to win what will be a competitive election."
One difference between Biden and Obama is the role of the DNC. Obama ignored the DNC and let it deteriorate. Biden has strengthened it and encouraged it to use its resources as it sees fit. It has focused on digital ads in key states and also ads on radio targeted at Black and Latino voters. Biden has said that too many worriers have missed the fact that while the campaign isn't busy on the ground in the battleground states, the DNC is very active there digitally. Jim Messina, Obama's 2012 campaign manager, said: "Anyone who mistakes headcount as a stand-in metric for communicating with voters doesn't know much about the realities of the modern election cycle."
On the other hand, one critic of Biden's approach said: "They are trying to save money, but what would a state director or deputy state director cost them for an extra three or four months to really get organized?" Another one said: "They're looking at it like, 'We have a year.' But what they're underestimating is how much damage is being done now... with massive disinformation campaigns." Who's right? After the election a lot of people will suddenly become unrecognized experts—or GOATs. (V)