The Biden campaign’s secret weapon: FLOTUS

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Feb 16, 2024 View in browser   By Sophie Gardner POLITICO illustration/Photo by AP Last week, the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents sounded an alarm for the Biden campaign and supporters of his reelection bid. The report described Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory,” while also concluding that no criminal charges should be brought against him. The response from the Biden campaign was swift, with the president holding a same-day press conference to dispute the characterization and sparking strongly worded responses from high-ranking officials within the administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris. But one of the most effective messengers proved to be the president’s wife: first lady Jill Biden. Two days after the report was released, a fundraising email denouncing the Hur report, signed “Love, Jill,” became the second-most lucrative money-raising email since the campaign began, CNN reported. Jill Biden personally had a hand in deciding to send the email and crafting its language, a person close to the first lady who was granted anonymity to speak about internal conversations told Women Rule. Jill Biden was, according to this person, uniquely positioned to respond from a personal perspective about the accusation that Joe Biden forgot the date of the death of his first son, Beau. “She very much felt like the attacks were unfair, inaccurate and beyond the pale, especially as it related to Beau,” the source told POLITICO. The fundraising success isn’t an anomaly, says Katie Rogers, a New York Times White House correspondent. When reporting on Jill Biden’s fundraising prowess ahead the 2022 midterms, data she received from a DNC spokesperson showed that low-dollar donors are 2.4 times more likely to donate if the fund-raising email comes from Jill Biden. “It’s proof that she is popular, but also that she compels low-dollar donors who are emotionally driven by the case the Bidens have made,” Rogers said, who is the author of a forthcoming book called American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden. “Jill Biden has always been somebody that takes up this mantle, … the more emotional, motherly, maternal lens into the Biden family itself.” The first lady has also had a rigorous schedule of traveling to swing states in recent months. Those events underscore her critical role in the 2024 campaign, which is bound to become even more demanding as the November election inches closer. Like any incumbent running for reelection, says the source close to FLOTUS, the Biden campaign will need to lean on its surrogate operation more than in the previous campaign. Since the beginning of 2024, Jill Biden has made stops in a wide variety of states, including Ohio, Utah, California, North Carolina and Texas (while managing to teach English two days a week at Northern Virginia Community College.) She also embarked on a full campaign schedule in 2020, though the pandemic forced her to move some of those operations online. But this year, her campaigning will be all the more vital, as Biden often needs to be in D.C. to manage frequent congressional crises, like repeated failures to pass Foreign aid. “There’s no greater time to emphasize her role, because of all of the really impactful events happening around the world that are consuming the White House and consuming the President in his day job,” said Michael LaRosa, who served as traveling press secretary to Jill Biden during the 2020 campaign. “Dr. B is his most effective surrogate to the country.” He noted that she’s particularly skilled at appealing to educated, suburban white women, a group that was key to Biden’s 2020 win and is also a vital voting bloc for Biden in 2024. Anita McBride, who served as chief of staff to first Lady Laura Bush, said that Jill Biden’s campaigning style is comparable to that of Lady Bird Johnson, who embarked on a tour of hostile southern states after her husband eliminated Jim Crow laws. Like Lady Bird, Jill Biden also makes a point of traveling to states that are hostile to her husband, says McBride, who co-authored the books Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America’s History-Making Women and U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies. “She wants to consistently use her platform to demonstrate that she is everyone's first lady, not just the people who voted for Joe,” McBride told Women Rule. 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MUST READS AP Photo/Susan Walsh “Biden’s abortion rhetoric riles progressives for not going far enough,” by Nathaniel Weixel and Alex Gangitano for The Hill: “President Biden’s rhetoric on abortion is angering some progressive activists, who say his comments about ‘abortion on demand’ show a reluctance to push for much more sweeping access than just restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade. ” “West Virginia bill defining gender is transphobic and ‘political rubbish,’ Democrats say,” by John Raby for the Associated Press: “The legislation says ‘equal’ does not mean ‘same’ or ‘identical’ with respect to equality of the sexes. It would define in state statues and official public policies that a person’s sex is determined at birth and that gender equity terms may not be substituted.” “Group Focused on Child Care Sets $40 Million Effort to Help Democrats,” by Lisa Lerer for the New York Times: “The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy will spend $40 million backing President Biden’s re-election bid and other Democratic candidates for the House and Senate. “California has had a woman in the Senate for 30 years. Is that about to change?” by Amanda Becker for the 19th. Quote of the Week Read more here. on the move Jess Szymanski is now director of strategic comms at Venture Global LNG. She most recently was deputy comms director for Never Back Down PAC and is an API, Dave McCormick and DOE alum. Jaylen Black is now vice president of comms and marketing at Planned Parenthood Southeast. She previously was a comms and political consultant and is a Stacey Abrams gubernatorial campaign and Raphael Warnock alum. (h/t Playbook.)   Follow us on Twitter Sophie Gardner @sophie_gardnerj   Follow us

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