President Biden will buy television ad time later this week to push his reelection message after announcing his campaign Tuesday morning in an online video, according to people familiar with the plans.
Quentin Fulks, the campaign manager for Sen. Raphael G. Warnock’s winning 2022 Georgia Senate campaign, will join Rodriguez as her deputy, marking the first time a sitting president has chosen a Latina woman and African American man to run his campaign.
A person involved in the process said Rodriguez was the top choice of all of Biden’s senior advisers, the president and the first lady, after an extensive interview process that included a wide array of Democratic campaign talent. A California native, she is the granddaughter of labor leader Cesar Chavez and a veteran of the Obama White House, later going to work for Harris both in her Senate office and as political director on her presidential campaign.
Rodriguez worked as a deputy campaign manger on the Biden-Harris campaign during the general election. In the White House, Rodriguez has been in charge of the office of intergovernmental affairs for Biden, managing his relationships with governors, mayors and county leaders around the country.
Biden has also selected a suite of co-chairs for his campaign, including Reps. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.), among others.
Biden will release his campaign announcement video early Tuesday morning, and in the afternoon he is scheduled to deliver remarks at the North America’s Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference.
The launch of his campaign closely echoes the start of his 2020 presidential campaign, which he also kicked off on April 25 and then followed with an event at a union hall in Pittsburgh.
The television ads are meant to demonstrate the aggressive footing of the coming Biden campaign. “We are coming to win,” said one person involved, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the planning process.
Since the start of his presidency, Biden has said he intends to run for a second term, but a broad swath of lawmakers, voters and activists — even some of the president’s supporters — wondered if the 80-year-old would follow through with a reelection campaign. He is already the oldest person to serve as president, and if reelected, he would be 86 at the end of his second term.
But inside the White House and at the Democratic National Committee, aides have been preparing for months for the reelection campaign. Anita Dunn and Jen O’Malley Dillon, two of Biden’s top White House aides, have been overseeing the campaign efforts and will play integral roles in the effort. Also involved are aides Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon, Bruce Reed, Jeff Zients and Ron Klain.
Later this week, Biden will meet with some of the Democratic Party’s top donors and bundlers in Washington. The event is expected to be a dinner on Friday night, though those invited are still waiting for details. Last week, aides with the DNC hastily invited donors from around the country to come to Washington for the summit with Biden.
By launching his campaign, Biden sets up a potential rematch with former president Donald Trump, who is the front-runner for the Republican nomination. Biden defeated Trump in 2020, but in a vastly different environment in which the coronavirus pandemic severely restricted campaign travel.
But in the short term, Biden’s schedule is unlikely to change dramatically. He is scheduled to travel to Japan and Australia in a few weeks and then will have to jump into a high-stakes, potentially bitter fight with House Republicans over raising the debt ceiling.