Delaware’s government is taking its first steps to reopen nearly all business in the state, raising the prospect its most prominent private citizen, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, may finally emerge from his home.
“It’s not going to be the old normal when we start the return,” Gov. John Carney last week said at a briefing in Wilmington. “It’s going to be a new normal that requires social distancing, requires these hygiene practices, until there is a vaccine.”
Businesses like clothing stores or bookstores will be allowed to offer customers curbside pick up. And barbershops will be able to operate in limited capacity so long as social distancing guidelines are followed. Only individuals deemed “essential workers” may get haircuts. Department stores will also be allowed to open, while other businesses can meet customers through appointment only.
For over two months, Biden has been holed up in his Wilmington, Delaware, home, conducting digital press conferences and campaign rallies through social media and streaming services. Those sessions have led to continued technological issues and anxiety from some Democrats that the former vice president’s White House bid is failing to compete with the Trump administration’s daily press briefings on the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Biden’s isolation has served as a punch-line for President Trump’s reelection campaign, which routinely sends out press releases mocking his basement campaign rallies.
“He does nothing but sit in his basement and lob political hand grenades, serving up partisan pablum and mumbling incoherent criticisms designed to score points, not help,” said a recent Trump campaign news release. “The choice for voters is clear: President Trump is the only one who has demonstrated that he knows how to get the economy fired up again.”
On Friday, Trump told Fox News that he’d “love to see [Biden] get out of the basement so he can speak.” He then offered to give the Biden campaign a rapid coronavirus test so Biden can get back out on the campaign trail.
Democratic strategists say the easing of restrictions is a tough balancing act for Biden, who wants to emphasize the need for stay-at-home orders while also not falling behind Trump’s reelection operation. On Friday, reports surfaced that Trump was considering drive-in campaign rallies that would allow supporters to safely socially distance in their cars while viewing the president speak from a movie screen.
Just because the economy is opening up, some Democrats say, doesn’t mean it’s strategically smart to go back to baby-kissing and photo ops at small businesses.
“He has to meet people where they are: in living rooms and devices. But he has to be strategic about it,” said Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright, who said Biden’s campaign is likely well-aware that things are not bound to return to normal anytime soon. “Campaigns, much like life, are about making adjustments. They’ve been very flexible while they’re meeting voters where they are. Just because you’re not in a stadium doesn’t mean you can’t meet them.”
So far, Biden’s campaign has bet that digital campaigning will be the way forward for now. He has begun hiring dozens of new staffers, including a doubling of his digital campaign arm, among concerns from donors and Democratic strategists that he is falling behind the GOP’s impressive online infrastructure.
But the announcement of new hires appears to be mostly reactive, as just this week former senior advisers to President Barack Obama, David Axelrod and David Plouffe, released an op-ed in the New York Times saying that “online speeches from his basement won’t cut it.”
“For Mr. Biden, the challenge is to transform a campaign that lagged behind many of his Democratic competitors during the primary in its use of digital media and timely, state-of-the-art communications techniques,” the two wrote.
By Friday, Biden’s campaign had set up cameras in multiple rooms of his home and yard, a notable change of scenery. That day Biden, a 36-year Delaware senator before serving two terms as Obama’s understudy, held a voter roundtable with chirping and buzzes heard softly in the background.
“Who knows what the world will look like in a month, so this is good training,” said Seawright.
In late April, Trump revealed its new organizing app billed as a one-stop-shop for all things Trump. The app requires users to enter their phone numbers as well as personal information like their home address, which will be used in November to help push Republicans to the polls.
Although Biden’s campaign claims its online videos, dispersed through social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, have gotten more than 100 million videos since March, Trump’s daily campaign videos reach a combined 1 million viewers a day.
