President Joe Biden is turning to familiar faces as he tries to shake up the leadership of his 2024 reelection campaign before November.
Biden has tapped White House deputy chief of staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, his 2020 campaign manager, and presidential senior adviser Mike Donilon to be his chairwoman and chief strategist, respectively. Julie Chavez Rodriguez will remain campaign manager, with O’Malley Dillon responsible for organizing and executing his path to 270 electoral votes, while Donilon will handle his messaging and paid media strategy. The changes will be introduced in the coming weeks as aides adopt more of a general election posture.
“Mike and Jen were essential members of the senior team that helped President Biden and Vice President Harris earn the most votes in American history in 2020, and we’re thrilled to have their leadership and strategic prowess focused full-time on sending them back to the White House for four more years,” Chavez Rodriguez told the Washington Examiner.
The shifts come after complaints, including from former President Barack Obama, that Biden’s campaign is unprepared for the general election, particularly if former President Donald Trump becomes the 2024 Republican nominee as he looks poised to do after Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire. In addition, there have been concerns regarding the potential for mismanagement as political decisions have been shared by the White House and Delaware. There has also been increased pressure based on Biden’s persistently poor polling, though public sentiment with respect to the economy has improved since the start of the year.
“This is a smart move by President Biden and Julie — having additional top political aides focus full-time on the reelect is exactly what you’d expect the White House to do as the general election matchup comes into focus,” Obama 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina said.
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Democratic strategist Maria Cardona added, “Julie is overseeing a strong campaign operation that is raising historic amounts of money and is well-primed to take on Donald Trump. She has the trust of the president, and it’s not just a good move, but critical and standard one, to bring trusted and effective leaders onto the campaign ahead of the election as Julie commandeers the troops to victory in November.”
O’Malley Dillon similarly took over from Greg Schultz during Biden’s 2020 campaign and was deputy manager of Obama’s 2012 bid. Chávez Rodríguez, labor activist Cesar Chavez’s granddaughter, was previously at the White House as Biden’s director of intergovernmental affairs, his highest-ranked Latina staffer, and was his 2020 deputy campaign manager under O’Malley Dillon.
