Two top Biden advisers take the reins of his reelection campaign

MANCHESTER, NH – The President Joe Biden has approved a shakeup of his campaign leadership and will send a senior White House adviser to take functional control of his reelection effort, just like the former president Donald Trump appears to be taking control of the Republican primaries to oppose him.

The advisor, Jennifer O’Malley Dillonwho served as Biden’s 2020 campaign manager and has served as White House deputy chief of staff since he became president, will move to Biden’s 2024 headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, and lead the campaign efforts, according to five people familiar with the conversations.

Mike Donilonan adviser who has worked for Biden for decades, will also move to Wilmington and become the campaign’s chief strategist.

“I am grateful to Mike and Jen for their service in the White House over the past three years and appreciate that as they rejoin the campaign trail, they are taking another step to ensure we get the job done for the American people,” Biden said. in a statement released by the White House afterward The New York Times informed of O’Malley Dillon’s impending departure.

It’s unclear exactly what role O’Malley Dillon will take in the campaign or when the announcement will be made, though it could come as soon as this week.

It’s what is expected Julie Chávez Rodríguezcampaign director since shortly after its start in April, he will retain that position.

“Our campaign manager has and will continue to oversee the president’s reelection efforts, and this campaign will remain focused on defeating Donald Trump and MAGA extremism on the ballot this November,” said Michael Tyler, the campaign’s communications director.

The move formalizes an arrangement in which O’Malley Dillon has overseen the campaign’s direction from Washington for months.

Floor

When the Biden campaign held a retreat for staff members in December at its headquarters, it was O’Malley Dillon who led the proceedings — not Chávez Rodríguez, according to two people who attended the session but were not authorized to speak about it publicly.

Donors, operatives, elected officials and other Democrats supporting Biden have grown increasingly concerned about a campaign structure in which major decisions, and even minor ones, were made by White House advisers and carried out by campaign staff in Delaware .

In recent months the former president Barack Obama met with Biden at the White House and expressed concern about the bifurcated structure, according to an account of their conversation published by The Washington Post.

The expected change in leadership comes as the campaign is about to take a turn more aggressive posture to pit Biden against Trump, who won the Iowa caucuses last week and Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary against Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is his last major Republican rival.

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