With the nation gearing up for a 2020 presidential election rematch, incumbent President Joe Biden’s campaign is dismissing former President Donald Trump as a “wounded, dangerous and unpopular candidate.”
After Trump dominated Super Tuesday’s GOP primaries and caucuses, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez issued a Wednesday morning statement saying, “The results of last night’s Super Tuesday contests cemented what we have known for some time now: Donald Trump limps into the general election as a wounded, dangerous and unpopular candidate.” The duo added, “The Republican nominee is cash-strapped, beleaguered by a host of external issues, and is running on an extreme agenda that is already proving to be a significant liability for key voting blocs that are critical to the pathway to 270 electoral votes.”
Biden’s campaign czars insisted that Thursday night’s State of the Union address “will provide the American people with the latest example of the stark choice they will be confronted with in November between President Biden, who remains laser-focused on delivering for the American people while running on a historically popular record of accomplishment, and Donald Trump, whose failed record and dark vision for this country is as dangerous as it is unpopular with the voters who will decide this election.”
This comes as polls show Biden’s popularity suffering and Trump leading the 81-year-old Democrat nationally, including in swing states. Notably, voters consider Biden to have had few or no major achievements since taking office in 2021, but his significant failures include the ongoing illegal immigration crisis, skyrocketing crime rates, “rampant inflation,” and “a shameful withdrawal from Afghanistan” — according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris survey. That same survey found that 60% of voters think Trump did a good job as president, including 53% of Independent voters and even 29% of Democrats.
Biden’s campaign also argued that the president’s performance among primary voters is stronger than his predecessor’s, despite hundreds of thousands of Democrats voting “uncommitted” instead of “Biden,” and Trump sweeping nearly every single state’s GOP primary so far. Democratic mega-donors have expressed concern over the growing “uncommitted” vote in their party, according to a memo from the coalition Way to Win, which has been responsible for over $300 million in political contributions since 2016. O’Malley Dillon and Chavez Rodriguez also emphasized the Biden war chest as a possible edge over Trump.
In fact, the first prong of Biden’s two-pronged campaign strategy is to “bury” Trump with campaign cash, according to a Politico report. The president’s campaign czars bragged of having over $130 million campaign cash on-hand, and Biden-backing super PACs Future Forward and American Bridge have already committed nearly half a billion dollars towards ads. American Bridge co-founder Bradley Beychok shared that Biden’s messaging strategy is going to focus on “how chaotic the first Trump presidency was.” Former Obama Campaign Finance Deputy Ami Copeland pointed to Barack Obama’s 2011 and 2012 ad campaign targeting his then-opponent Mitt Romney: “There was time for them to define Romney through that cash, and there is time now to define Trump in the same way.”
The Biden campaign boasted that its allies have pledged to spend over $700 million before November and Federal Elections Commission filings indicate that Biden and the Democratic National Committee have around $41 million more than Trump and the Republican National Committee. NBC News reported that Biden will appear alongside Obama and Bill Clinton at a fundraiser later this year, which is expected to raise $10 million in a single night. Photos with the trio of Democratic presidents will start at $100,000 each, prompting Biden Victory Fund National Finance Chair Chris Korge to declare, “This is going to be the biggest fundraising event that Joe Biden has done in his political career. I believe it’s the largest fundraising event in Democratic Party history.”
The second — though closely-linked — prong of Biden’s campaign strategy, according to an Axios report, is to consistently taunt Trump and label him a “loser,” in the hopes of making the 45th president “go haywire in pubic.” Axios noted that Biden intends to avoid discussing areas in which his presidency has failed — such as the economy, crime, immigration, foreign policy, etc. — and instead devote his energy to baiting Trump. Axios surmised that the “trigger Trump” strategy might “help assuage concerns about Biden’s age…” Another Axios report revealed that Biden advisers and campaigners are hoping that Thursday night’s State of the Union address as “a chance to overcome or at least neutralize concerns about President Biden’s age and vitality.” This follows numerous polls reporting that a majority of Americans are worried about Biden’s age and cognitive fitness for the Oval Office.
In an interview this week, Trump also expressed concerns over Biden’s age. “I think he’s in bad shape,” Trump said. “I think he’s cognitively impaired, and he’s certainly physically impaired. He can’t walk off a stage. He can’t walk up a flight of stairs, you know, three stairs. And he can never find his way. He can never find the stairs. He can’t put two sentences together…” Trump added that he doesn’t think Biden is “going to make it” to the November election.
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.
