How Biden's Campaign is Beating Trump

Trump's campaign may be better than his previous efforts, but the Biden campaign is vastly more strategic and sophisticated

Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman recently wrote an article detailing how the 2024 Trump Campaign was more strategic, better organized, and “terrifyingly competent.” Sherman wrote:

Trump’s 2024 campaign has already demonstrated Trump can run an effective operation. “This campaign is locked down,” a Republican close to Trump said. In previous cycles, Trump populated his campaigns with huge egos like Roger Stone, Kushner, Ivanka, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Corey Lewandowski, and Brad Parscale, among others. In 2024, Trump’s inner circle is made up of heads-down operatives Susie Wiles, Chris LaCivita, Miller, and James Blair, who don’t play their agendas through the media. “You have experienced people who don’t leak,” longtime Trump confidant Stone said. Trump trusts his senior team to do their jobs.

There is plentiful evidence that Trump is running a better campaign than his 2016 and 2020 efforts. He dispatched his primary opponents with relative ease, and there was an obvious level of strategic messaging that was absent before. In the past, Trump relied on a collection of grifters, media personalities, and those who couldn’t get hired anywhere else in Republican politics. Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles are competent, experienced political operatives.

In his piece, Sherman warns Democrats not to underestimate the Trump operation, and I promise not to do that. However, being better than Trump in 2016 is not the same as being better than Biden in 2024. With seven months to go, Joe Biden’s Campaign operation is well ahead of Trump’s.

1. The Incumbent Advantage

There’s a reason why incumbents win more often than not. Incumbency is an advantage. Of course, convincing the electorate to fire a president presents a challenge, but the ability to plan, raise money, and build campaign infrastructure while your opponent is campaigning for the nomination is a huge advantage. Because Trump’s primary opponents never landed a blow on him and he was able to avoid the diminishing campaign rituals, including debates, there was a sense that he negated Biden’s incumbent advantage. But that is not the case.

The Biden Campaign viewed the State of the Union as the starting gun. From the moment the President walked off the dais, the campaign has been fully engaged — dropping new ads, opening offices, and pushing its message aggressively in the battleground states.

They spent the last year quietly building an operation, doing plenty of research, and sketching out a plan to defeat Donald Trump.

2. Biden’s Offense

The Trump Campaign exited the GOP primary largely broke despite facing no real opposition. And his campaign has struggled to pivot to the general election. Since Nikki Haley dropped out, Trump has rarely campaigned, and avoids battleground states or even using media to reach voters. The campaign has no ads of consequence on the air and Trump is spending most of his time spinning records at Mar-a-Lago or attending legal proceedings related to his various criminal trials.

The Biden operation has been on non-stop offense. Since the State of the Union, the President remains omnipresent in the battleground states. His messaging is  strategically designed to shore up the President’s coalition; and he is currently in the midst of a three-day tour of Pennsylvania to talk about the economy. Since the State of the Union, the President made major announcements on climate change, student loan debt cancellation, gun safety reform and prescription drug costs. All of these issues are critical to the struggling segments of his coalition.

The Biden Campaign continues to draw contrasts with Trump at every opportunity, launching new ads and videos on a near daily basis to define Trump and his agenda like this ad released immediately after the Arizona Supreme Court enacted a near-total ban on abortion in the state:

This week, President Biden is barnstorming Pennsylvania to drive and amplify an economic contrast message with this new ad. 

Trump, on the other hand, has been on defense in recent weeks. He is scrambling to unwind his proposals to cut Social Security and repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump is also utterly flummoxed by how to talk about abortion. One day he says to leave it to the states, and the next day he opposes Arizona’s state law banning abortion. For the next six to eight weeks, he is trapped in a Manhattan courtroom instead of campaigning in the states that will decide the election.

Based on the first month of the general election, Biden has a clear strategy to win and Trump is still figuring it out.

3. Biden’s Organizational Advantage

Last year, a number of Democrats were privately and publicly critical of the Biden Campaign’s slow ramp-up in the battleground states. However, the Biden Campaign is now rapidly scaling in those same states.

According to reporting by NBC News:

Flush with $71 million cash at the end of February — more than twice that of Trump's campaign — Biden parlayed his fundraising advantage into a hiring spree that now boasts 300 paid staffers across nine states and 100 offices in parts of the country that will decide the 2024 election, according to details provided by the campaign.

Trump’s advisers would not disclose staffing levels, but his ground game still seems to be at a nascent stage. His campaign hired state directors in Pennsylvania and Michigan last week, people familiar with the recruitment process said.

Time is a non-renewable resource. You can always raise more money, hire more people or run more ads. But every day that passes without making progress is a day gone. Every day that Biden has a presence in those key states and Trump doesn’t is a win for Biden.

4. Parsing the Money Numbers

The Biden-Harris Campaign recently held a massive fundraiser with Presidents Biden, Obama, Clinton, Stephen Colbert, Mindy Kaling, and many more. The event raised a record $25 million for the campaign and the Democratic National Committee. A few days later, the Trump Campaign announced that they raised $50 million at an event at Mar-a-Lago. Doubling Biden’s number seems huge, right? Not so fast. First, Trump lies about everything, and he likely lied about this, too. With all things Trump and Republican, reading the fine print is crucial. The reporting suggests that some portion — and maybe a large portion — will go to Trump-affiliated Super PACs. This is notable for two reasons. First, Trump is paying his legal bills out of one of these Super PACs to the tune of more than $100 million to date. Yes, Trump spent four times what Biden raised at that massive fundraiser on his own legal bills. Second — and this is an often ignored fact in coverage of campaign spending — a dollar given to a Super PAC is worth exponentially less than a dollar given to the campaign. By law, television stations must charge the campaigns the lowest unit rate, but they can gouge the living crap out of a Super PAC. Therefore, campaign dollars go much further than Super PAC dollars. Because of the Democratic grassroots fundraising machine, the Biden Campaign will have more money to spend than the Trump Campaign, even if the pro-Trump Super PACs out-raise the pro-Biden ones.

Having the most money does not guarantee victory — Hillary Clinton outspent Trump in 2016 and still lost. I am confident Trump will have enough money, but having more money is still better. This is especially true for President Biden because he will have to rely more on paid communications to reach his voters. Trump has the benefit of a massive Right Wing propaganda and media machine (although this advantage is not what it used to be, but more on that in a future post).

5. Does Having a Better Campaign Matter?

For all of the attention on campaign strategy, individual ads, and political operatives, elections are most often decided by structural factors — the mood of the nation, the unemployment rate, the cost of gas and groceries, etc. However, campaigns matter on the margins, and this is an election that will likely be won in the margins. If 2024 is as close as the last two elections (and we have every reason to believe it will be), Biden's better campaign could be the difference between victory and defeat.