Biden campaign unveils strategy ahead of debate

Days away from the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the incumbent Democrat’s reelection campaign is unveiling its strategy for the week — hosting hundreds of events and launching new ads in battleground states — as he settles into Camp David to advocate for to prepare .

In total, Biden’s team says it plans to host more than 1,600 events in key swing states ahead of Thursday night’s showdown. It will also distribute new digital and TV ads focused on reproductive health care, the economy and democracy — issues it hopes will “shape the election,” according to a campaign memo.

It will all culminate in 300 viewing parties on the night of the debate and 40 virtual events specifically aimed at reaching young voters, Caribbean women, Venezuelan Americans and the LGBTQ+ community.

The president’s campaign is placing a particular emphasis on engaging young voters — a voting bloc where some recent polls have shown Trump has the potential to gain ground. Biden’s team will host a statewide virtual debate watch party for students in battleground Michigan and leverage the platform of content creators on social media sites such as TikTok, Instagram and X, formerly Twitter.

The campaign will host viewing parties for such creators in Atlanta, where the debate is taking place, as well as in Wilmington, where Biden’s campaign is headquartered, and allow them into the “spin” room at the debate site — a space typically inhabited only by traditional legitimized media.

“In short, Thursday’s debate will be one of the first moments of this presidential campaign in which a larger portion of the American electorate will have the opportunity to witness the stark choice between Joe Biden, who fights for the American people, and Donald Trump. who is fighting for himself as a convicted felon with an unhinged campaign of revenge and retaliation,” Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, wrote in the memo.

The organizing effort kicks off Monday with more than 50 events marking the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which struck down the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. to individual states and leads to bans and restrictions on the practice across the country.

Both Biden and Democrats made clear during the vote that they believe reproductive health care is a winning issue for their side following the overturning of Roe. They credit the topic in part for a better-than-expected outcome in the 2022 midterm elections, pointing out that voters in even ruby-red states like Kansas and Ohio are voting to keep the practice more widely accessible after the Dobbs decision.

Trump appointed three of the justices who ruled in favor of overturning Roe.

Vice President Kamala Harris took the lead on these topics on Monday, speaking at an event in Maryland where she said Trump is “guilty” of “stealing the reproductive freedom of the women of America,” in what was also an apparent reference to the former president’s legal problems. After initially limiting his involvement on the subject, Biden’s team has recently highlighted the fact that Trump was found guilty by a New York jury last month in his hush money case, now often referring to him as a ‘convicted criminal’.

It all comes as the two candidates, Biden and Trump, present a sharp contrast in the way they prepare for their rematch on the debate stage — the first time a sitting president and a former president have faced off in such a manner to stand.

Since Thursday, Biden has been sequestered with top allies at Camp David – the presidential retreat tucked into the Maryland mountains and where he is expected to remain until the debate – in preparation for taking on Trump.

The former president, by contrast, has been out to address conservatives at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington on Saturday afternoon before heading to Philadelphia that evening for a rally in which he criticized the debate preparation strategy of his opponent.

“It has been reported that Crooked Joe has gone to a cabin at this time to study and prepare,” Trump said on Saturday. “No, he didn’t, he’s sleeping now because they want to get him good and strong…”

Trump also asked his supporters whether he should be “tough and mean” or “nice and calm.”