Biden campaign beefs up battleground operations with new leadership team

WASHINGTON ― President Joe Biden's reelection campaign named its leadership team Thursday that will oversee operations in seven top battleground states, beefing up staff in states likely to decide the 2024 presidential election.

The moves come as Democrats are expressing increased anxiety with polls showing Biden tied with or narrowly trailing Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in a hypothetical rematch against the former president.

The Biden campaign has hired three veteran Democratic operatives to lead efforts in battleground states, which includes coordinating with Democratic candidates running for other offices.

• Dan Kanninen, an alumni of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns, will serve as battleground states director. Kanninen is the founding partner and CEO of the Democratic consulting firm Arc Initiatives.

• Lauren Brainerd, a veteran of five presidential campaigns including Obama's and Clinton's, is the campaign's deputy battleground states director. Brainerd worked as national coordinated campaign director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the 2022 election cycle.

• Josh Marcus-Blank, former communications director for U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., will serve as the team's communications director

"This team’s collective experience and talent sends a clear signal: we have a winning team that will fight to defend our democracy, rights, and freedoms.” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

The team will oversee campaign operations in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina.

Biden won each except North Carolina in the 2020 election against Trump. That means the Biden campaign is playing defense to hold on to states Biden carried in 2020 more than it is playing offense to expand the electoral map.

The Trump campaign says it is putting a special emphasis on the six states that Biden won and Trump protested after the 2020 election - Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Trump campaign has also circled two other states as battlegrounds they believe they can flip: Minnesota and New Mexico.

Recent polling has shown Biden struggling against Trump, the heavy favorite to secure the Republican nomination, in several battleground states. That includes a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll last month that found Biden trailing in all seven swing states the Biden campaign is targeting.

But Biden has improved his standing in some states. In Pennsylvania, a battleground crucial for Biden's chances, Biden leads Trump 49%-46% among registered voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. The same poll had Trump leading Biden 47%-45% in October.

"This campaign is laser focused on making the case −every day − to the voters in the key battleground states that will be decisive in 2024," Kanninen said in a statement, adding that Biden has "multiple paths" to victory.

Reach Joey Garrison on X, formerly known as Twitter, @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden campaign beefs up operations in battleground states