Biden-Harris campaign ramps up staffing in Wisconsin as 2024 election kicks into gear

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris' reelection campaign is beefing up its presence in Wisconsin with the hiring of new operatives tied to the state as the 2024 presidential race kicks into full swing.

The campaign on Wednesday announced Iris Riis as its state deputy campaign manager. Nick Truog will be the campaign's political director in Wisconsin, and Anna Surrey was named general election director.

The trio will join a team of three veteran Democrats to help oversee the campaign's operations in the battleground state Biden won in 2020 and will likely need to carry this year in his quest for re-election. The announcement comes as Biden is set to visit Superior on Thursday and follows a New Hampshire primary that saw former President Donald Trump coast to victory — the latest sign he'll take the Republican presidential nomination.

Garren Randolph, Biden's state campaign manager, called Wisconsin "critically important" to the president's reelection and said it has been "front and center in the fight for Americans’ freedoms," citing the fight for abortion rights and "defending our democracy."

Randolph added: "This strong, battle-tested Wisconsin team will build upon years of historic investment to mobilize our winning coalition and re-elect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris."

Riis, the campaign's new state deputy campaign manager, most recently served as deputy executive director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, where she was previously communications director. Riis, the Biden campaign said, "played a pivotal part" in reelecting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and in Justice Janet Protasiewicz's victory in the state Supreme Court race last year.

She has also worked in communications for the healthcare advocacy group Protect Our Care and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

Abortion access has been a main motivator for Democrats in Wisconsin and across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion across the country. Harris visited Wisconsin on Monday on the 51st anniversary of the Roe case and made clear abortion rights will remain a top issue for Democrats in 2024.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Wisconsin is "Ground Zero" for the fight for abortion rights. She mentioned a recent proposal from state Republicans that would ban abortions after 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Truog, the campaign's Wisconsin political director, was DPW's political director since 2020. He has served as an aide to Milwaukee U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and advised former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who lost a close Senate race against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022. Like Riis, Truog had been involved in Evers and Protasiewicz's recent elections.

The campaign said Truog's work has been "critical to help build long-term presence and relationships in Wisconsin underrepresented communities" — one of the campaign's goals in Wisconsin this year.

Surrey, the general election director, was the organizing director for the successful Biden-Harris campaign in 2020. She was named the coordinated campaign director at the DPW in 2022 and since worked on various statewide elections in Wisconsin.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Biden-Harris campaign ramps up staffing in Wisconsin