Biden's Campaign Strategy Raises Concerns of Lackluster Effort in Key Swing States
Joe Biden's campaign team is making a strategic move in the race for the White House by spending more than $50 million on TV and digital ads in swing states, rather than investing in local organizers to connect with voters in person.
This ad-heavy strategy, unprecedented for an incumbent this early in the election cycle, is a striking departure from Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, which focused on building a strong team of organizers to reach voters up to 18 months before the election.
But Biden's team seems to have a different approach, believing that Americans are spending more time online and, on their phones, making it equally important to engage with them in the digital world rather than on their doorstep.
…Or the Biden team maybe concerned to put the president out in front of crowds live and in real time.
According to Biden's campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster, "Today's political organizing environment is dramatically different from 2011 and even from 2019, and we are building a campaign to win next November - not past elections."
However, compared to this stage in Obama's 2012 campaign, Biden's team has only 38 workers on staff, while Obama had nearly nine times as many. It seems that rather than focusing on a strong grassroots effort, Biden's team is relying heavily on advertising blitzes in swing states where the election is likely to be decided.
So far, the campaign has spent $39 million on TV ads and over $10 million on social media platforms like Facebook and Google, according to AdImpact and Bully Pulpit Interactive.
But is this strategy effective?
Polls show that Biden is facing a tight race with likely GOP nominee Donald Trump, and with the president's approval ratings on the rise, the Democrats may be in for a tough fight.
Some are skeptical that Biden could generate a similarly large team of low-paid field organizers like Obama did. As one Obama veteran put it, "What Obama was able to generate was unique to him."
Even Jen O'Malley Dillon, who oversaw Obama's field program in 2012, seems to have doubts about Biden's strategy.
Biden's campaign argues that their focus on digital platforms allows them to reach targeted groups like Black and young voters in Wisconsin, and Latino and women voters in Arizona. But with the lack of a strong grassroots effort, it raises concerns about whether Biden can truly connect with these voters and win their support.
As Hahrie Han, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of "Groundbreakers: How Obama's 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America," points out, the importance of a strong field program has always been debated among political consultants.
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Furthermore, the fact that Biden won the Democratic primary with a smaller grassroots operation compared to rivals like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and managed to defeat Trump in 2020 with limited in-person canvassing due to the pandemic, raises questions about the effectiveness of these traditional campaign efforts.
This debate is further fueled by the fact that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has a large canvassing operation for his GOP presidential race, has not seen a significant increase in his polling numbers in early primary states.