WASHINGTON \u2014 For months, President Joe Biden\u2019s advisers have promised anxious Democrats that once checked-out voters begin to engage, he will gain the advantage over former President Donald Trump. And for months the presidential race has remained stagnant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the end of Trump\u2019s criminal trial, the Biden team now sees a new window of opportunity to try and accelerate efforts to draw in disengaged voters, using its growing campaign infrastructure to ramp up voter outreach while sharpening its pitch to voters: that Trump is more focused on himself than them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe thing that this campaign is very focused on doing is reminding the American people \u2014 and the voters we have to mobilize and persuade \u2014 of the incredibly important choice they have, and the clear and present threat that Trump presents,\u201d a senior campaign official said. \u201cThat threat for a lot of people isn\u2019t front and center. And we view it as obviously our imperative to put that front and center.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign\u2019s goal is to lay the groundwork for the first Biden-Trump debate on June 27 by driving issue-specific messages around key events and milestones. In some cases, it will be Biden himself driving the message, as with a major speech planned in France this week on threats to democracy. But consistent with the campaign\u2019s soft touch toward hard-to-reach voters, the effort will also involve key surrogates and what Biden aides refer to as \u201ctrusted messengers\u201d \u2014 local officials and community leaders \u2014 to highlight issues like threats to women\u2019s reproductive rights and the president\u2019s economic vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur task at this point is engaging them when they don\u2019t want to engage with us,\u201d a Biden campaign pollster said of voters. \u201cNot waiting for them to tune in, but instead sort of being there with a persistent message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s yet another test for a campaign that began dramatically scaling up \u2014 and promising a swing in polling that continues to show Biden trailing Trump in some key battleground states \u2014 after the president\u2019s State of the Union address in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One longtime Democratic donor also noted that in private conversations for several months, Biden campaign officials said the president\u2019s poll numbers would improve, and his prospects would brighten, once Trump became the presumptive nominee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt hasn\u2019t happened,\u201d this person said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some Biden aides argue that any momentum the campaign had begun to build after Biden and Trump effectively secured their party\u2019s nominations in March stalled as the former president\u2019s criminal trial in New York dominated the airwaves. But the Biden pollster said the bigger issue is that the voters they see as key to Biden\u2019s winning coalition \u2014 particularly younger, minority voters \u2014 are \u201cactively tuning [the race] out in ways that we haven\u2019t seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey aren\u2019t fully consolidated behind the president in ways that they were in 2020 on Election Day, and the way we feel confident that they will become this Election Day. But it\u2019s not because they\u2019re tempted by Trump,\u201d the pollster said. The Biden campaign\u2019s task now, the pollster added, is \u201cshowing them and reminding them of exactly what life was like when Trump was president last, and how much worse a second term is going to be, to elevate the stakes of the election so that even if they are feeling disaffected right now, that doesn\u2019t mean that there is not a very clear choice in this election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign\u2019s new approach began last week as police officers who served at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, fanned out across the battleground states to hold events with local officials about what they called Trump\u2019s attacks on democracy. In another key moment, Biden will deliver a major address during a trip to France to mark the D-Day anniversary this week, connecting the fight against authoritarianism eight decades ago to the work he believes must still be done to preserve democracy today, according to an administration official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the eighth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Biden team will hold events focused on gun safety, which polling shows is a top issue for the kinds of younger voters the campaign is hoping to win over. And there will be a steady drumbeat of events focused on reproductive rights starting this week ahead of a key vote in Congress on access to contraceptive care and building toward the June 24 anniversary of the Dobbs decision, when Biden aides said the campaign will highlight how Trump\u2019s nomination of three conservative justices led to the Supreme Court decision overturning the abortion protections of Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, campaign officials are careful not to promise the kind of swing in the polls in the weeks ahead that has thus far eluded them. The Biden pollster said disengaged voters don\u2019t act in a \u201clight switch\u201d fashion, but \u201cwhen there are these breakthrough moments, we need to win the moment and win over the messaging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese gains are going to be incremental,\u201d they said. \u201cIt takes persistence and discipline, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing and not losing sight of the task.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One problem for the Biden campaign in trying to reassure nervous Democrats is that currently the most engaged voters are also the most frustrated with polling that shows the president failing to gain traction. And each month that goes by has only prompted increasingly public hand-wringing about the campaign\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden campaign officials counter those concerns by pointing out that while Trump\u2019s trial was dominating the headlines, its staff on the ground in battleground states was building relationships with voters who may not be enthusiastic about the campaign now, but whose support they believe can be earned. They also make the case that Trump\u2019s trial kept his campaign from doing the work on the ground in battleground states that\u2019s designed to try and move voters over the next five months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe certainly think about the big moments as a way to catalyze and maybe energize that work, but it\u2019s consistent. And the point I\u2019d make about that is that Donald Trump is doing none of that,\u201d Dan Kanninen, Biden\u2019s director of battleground states, said in an interview. \u201cAnd he cannot buy back the time that they\u2019ve lost.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign does not expect to dwell on Trump\u2019s historic criminal conviction on 34 felonies, Biden aides said. But to the extent the former president tries to use it as a galvanizing event for his supporters, the Biden campaign sees an opportunity to turn it against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll of these things are a further iteration of the core message, that one of these candidates is getting up every day and fighting for you,\u201d said another senior campaign official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. \u201cAnd one person is getting up every day, talking and thinking about only himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n