Joe Biden’s long-awaited 2024 presidential reelection bid could land as soon as Tuesday morning through a video announcement, but already the notoriously deliberative president’s campaign is taking shape with several potential high-level hires.
(Bloomberg) — Joe Biden’s long-awaited 2024 presidential reelection bid could land as soon as Tuesday morning through a video announcement, but already the notoriously deliberative president’s campaign is taking shape with several potential high-level hires.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, currently a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, is expected to become the campaign manager.
She previously worked as the deputy campaign manager on Biden and Kamala Harris’s campaign in 2020 and also worked in the Barack Obama-Biden White House, making her well-known to both Biden’s family and his inner circle of aides. Bloomberg News reported her as the top contender for the post last week.
Top aides from recent successful US Senate swing-state campaigns are also expected to join Biden’s reelect effort as senior advisers, including Quentin Fulks, former campaign manager for Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock, and Emma Brown, who ran Mark Kelly’s successful campaign for Senate in Arizona.
The sources stressed the discussions are still fluid for most of the positions which have not yet been finalized.
Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, and Roger Lau, the deputy executive director of the DNC and a former senior adviser to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, are in talks to possibly join the campaign, too. Both are well-liked by Biden’s top White House aides, according to two sources briefed on the machinations.
Former White House assistant press secretary Kevin Munoz, who oversaw messaging related to the Covid-19 pandemic, will be a campaign spokesperson.
And T.J. Ducklo, a former Biden 2020 campaign aide who resigned from the White House in February 2021 for his disrespectful interactions with a female journalist, is expected to join the Biden reelect effort.
He left the White House weeks into Biden’s first term after he threatened and screamed at a female reporter from Politico over a story. He resigned soon after the White House suspended him without pay for a week under Biden’s personal promise to take allegations of abusive language or conduct seriously in his White House.
Most recently, Ducklo worked for the mayor of Nashville in a communications role. He is likely to work in a strategic communications role on the campaign and not interact directly with reporters.
Ducklo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several aides were buzzing about Ducklo re-joining Biden world — though he has the support of some key advisers and showed up at last year’s July 4 barbecue on the White House grounds.
Finally, longtime Democratic operative Michael Tyler is expected to take on the role of communications director. Politico first reported his hire on Sunday. He worked on New Jersey US Senator Cory Booker’s 2020 presidential campaign and as the former chief of staff for the DNC. He also helped Atlanta in its unsuccessful bid to host the 2024 Democratic convention.
Much of Biden’s 2024 campaign is still expected to be run of out the White House by longstanding key aides including Anita Dunn, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed.
After Biden likely announces his run for president on Tuesday in a short video he taped in Rehoboth, Delaware, last weekend, he and his team will host donors in Washington on Friday and Saturday for a dinner and briefing with top officials.
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