July 13, 2020

ICYMI: Biden for President Announces Key Staff Hires in Maine and Minnesota

Today, Biden for President announced key staff hires in Maine and Minnesota – including Maine and Minnesota natives, former staff from the Obama-Biden campaigns, and various state and local races.
 
James Stretch, Maine State Director
James Stretch has over a decade of campaign experience working on federal, state and local elections. He first came to Maine in 2013 where he served as senior staff on Emily Cain’s congressional race. Last cycle, as regional political director with the DCCC, he worked closely with Congressman Golden’s campaign helping to unseat Bruce Poliquin and take back the House. He and his wife enjoy hiking and biking in the Maine mountains.
 
Spencer Thibodeau, Maine Senior Advisor
Spencer Thibodeau is an attorney and public servant, serving as a City Councilor for the City of Portland since 2015. Elected at the age of 27, Spencer is the current Chair of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee and a member of the Economic Development Committee. Spencer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, adopted to Maine at an early age, and is a proud graduate of Fairfield University and Northeastern University School of Law. Spencer is a board member of the United Way of Greater Portland and when he is not in the office, he can be found running, enjoying the Maine outdoors, or visiting one of Portland’s many restaurants.
 
Ryan Doyle, Minnesota State Director
Ryan Doyle is the MN State Director. Previously, Ryan was the Campaign Manager for Keith Ellison’s 2018 Attorney General Race and worked on Elizabeth Warren’s Presidential Primary campaign. In 2017, he directed the DNC’s summer organizing program and served as the DNC liaison to national progressive organizations.
 
Corey Day, Minnesota Senior Advisor
Day was the longtime executive director of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL), overseeing the party’s local, state, and federal election campaigns. He has directed state and field operations for the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Recently, Day served as Minnesota’s Senior Advisor for Biden for President during the primaries and is currently the principle of Blue Ox Strategies.
 
Misha Battiste, Minnesota Coalitions Director
Misha Battiste is the Coalitions Director for the MN Coordinated Campaign. Previously, she was the National Deputy Director of Surrogates for Elizabeth Warren’s Presidential Primary. Misha was the Deputy Political Director for Tina Smith for Minnesota in 2018 and the Deputy Operations Director for Hillary for America in 2016.
 
Portland Press Herald: Portland city councilor gets leadership role in Biden’s Maine campaign
[By Dennis Hoey, 7/13/20]
 
The Biden for President campaign on Monday announced its leadership team for Maine, which will include Portland City Councilor Spencer Thibodeau.
 
James Stretch will serve as the Biden campaign’s state director and Thibodeau as senior adviser, according to a news release issued by Biden’s campaign headquarters.
 
Portland City Councilor Spencer Thibodeau Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
 
Stretch has more than a decade of campaign experience, having worked on federal, state and local elections. He came to Maine in 2013 and served as deputy finance director in Emily Cain’s bid for the 2nd Congressional District seat. In the last election cycle, Stretch served as regional political director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and worked closely with Jared Golden’s campaign in his successful bid to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin.
 
Thibodeau, who has represented District 2 on the Portland City Council since 2015, is a well-known political figure in the city. In November, Thibodeau finished second in a ranked-choice voting contest for mayor, losing out to Kate Snyder.
 
Thibodeau, who was elected to the City Council at the age of 27, is an attorney and is currently chairman of the council’s Sustainability and Transportation Committee and a member of the Economic Development Committee.
 
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he moved to Maine at an early age. He graduate from Fairfield University and the Northeastern University School of Law. He currently serves on the board of United Way of Greater Portland. His pastimes including running and spending time outdoors.
 
Thibodeau could not be reached for comment Sunday night.
 
The Biden campaign said the appointments will take effect immediately, describing Stretch and Thibodeau’s roles as senior leadership positions in a state that the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, won from Republican Donald Trump.
 
But the 2016 presidential election was not a sweep for the Democrats. Trump claimed one Electoral College vote, the first time the state had split its four electoral votes. Clinton got three electoral votes by winning the statewide vote and the 1st District, but lost to Trump in the more conservative, rural 2nd District.
 
Biden’s campaign outraised Trump’s re-election campaign in May and June. A New York Times poll, conducted in June, also showed that Biden had built a commanding lead over his Republican rival.
 
KARE 11: Biden presidential campaign announces key Minnesota staff
[By Jeremiah Jacobsen, 7/13/20]
 
Former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is announcing key senior staff members in the state of Minnesota for the 2020 general election campaign.
 
Biden's Minnesota team features several experienced Democratic campaign staffers, including two who previously worked for one of Biden's primary rivals, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
 
Corey Day has been named senior advisor for Biden in Minnesota. Day served as executive director for the Minnesota DFL party for eight years; he previously helped run state presidential campaign operations for John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and served as a senior advisor on Biden's primary campaign in Minnesota.
 
Ryan Doyle will serve as state director for the Biden campaign in Minnesota. Doyle previously worked on Keith Ellison's 2018 bid for Minnesota Attorney General and Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential primary bid.
 
Misha Battiste will serve as Coalitions Director in Minnesota. Battiste was Deputy Political Director for Sen. Tina Smith in 2018, and also worked with the Warren presidential campaign earlier this year.
 
"The heart of progressive, grassroots politics beats in Minnesota, where voters are fiercely independent and where winning takes the grit and determination of a battle-tested team," said Biden campaign National States Director Jenn Ridder in a statement, vowing that the veteran campaign staff will help the former VP carry Minnesota in November's general election.
 
ABC News: Biden campaign adds staff in traditionally blue states, while eyeing expanded battleground map
[By: Molly Nagle, John Verhovek, 7/13/20]
 
With the Democratic National Convention just over a month away, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign is continuing to roll out state leadership teams, revealing a battleground map that both defends traditional blue states and expands into territory that's looking increasingly friendly to the Democratic cause in November.
 
The latest states where leadership teams have been announced, Maine and Minnesota, join Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa and Pennsylvania as key battlegrounds the Biden campaign sees as playing a role in their path to 270 electoral votes.
 
The new stable of hires comes as the Biden campaign balances the challenge of both expanding their operations in traditionally Republican-won states like Texas and Arizona, where recent public polling shows them within striking distance of President Donald Trump, while bolstering their teams in typical Democratic strongholds where Hillary Clinton drastically underperformed in the 2016 election.
 
"I think it's exciting," Jenn Ridder, Biden's national director of states, told ABC News regarding Biden's polling numbers in normally-red battleground states. "But I think we know that we can't take anything for granted or any state for granted. So that's why we're putting robust teams in places like Minnesota and places that have traditionally gone blue as well as new places to expand the map."
 
In Minnesota, a state that Clinton won by just under two points in 2016 and is seen as a rare opportunity for President Trump to go on offense in 2020, the Biden campaign has hired a trio of operatives to oversee its efforts to keep the state blue, including two former staffers of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's presidential bid.
 
Ryan Doyle, a veteran of Warren's campaign who managed former Rep. Keith Ellison's successful campaign for state attorney general in 2018, will serve as the Biden campaign's Minnesota state director. Misha Battiste, who served as Warren's national deputy director of surrogates and previously worked on Sen. Tina Smith's campaign in 2018 and on the Clinton campaign in 2016, will be the Biden team's coalitions director in Minnesota.
 
Corey Day, the longtime executive director of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party who was hired as a senior adviser in the state during the lead-up to its March primary, will stay on in the role for the general election.
 
In Maine, which in 2016 saw a Republican presidential candidate score an electoral vote for the first time since George H.W. Bush in 1988, the Biden campaign brought on two senior staffers to helm its operations.
 
James Stretch, who in his role with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) in 2018 helped flip the last remaining GOP-held congressional seat in New England blue, will serve as the Biden campaign's state director in Maine, while Spencer Thibodeau, a Portland City Councilor, comes on board as a senior adviser.
 
Campaign officials say the outcome of the 2016 election is an all-too-fresh reminder of what can happen if enough attention is not paid to make-or-break areas like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania -- all states that the Clinton campaign was accused of taking for granted in the last election in favor of attempts to expand their electoral map.
 
Despite the outcome of 2016, Ridder says that the campaign is not placing a higher importance on offense or defense, as a wave of positive polling for Biden and unity within the Democratic party has helped energize the campaign with less than four months to go.
 
"I would say as the states director I don't really prioritize one or another. I think we are really seeing this holistically. We're both taking care of business but also expanding the map, and being competitive where we can," Ridder said.
 
The campaign declined to provide the total number of organizers on staff, but noted that more than 700 state organizers recently joined a call to hone their message around Biden's newly announced "Build Back Better" economic plan to help restore and grow the economy as the coronavirus pandemic continues. The plan also seeks to draw a contrast with Trump on Trump's signature issue -- one on which polling shows voters still prefer him to Biden.
 
But even as it gears up for the general election, the campaign continues to largely operate remotely. The former vice president has kept his in-person campaigning confined mostly to the battleground state of Pennsylvania, and staffers continue to work from afar.
 
Keeping their organizing operation digital stands in contrast to the Trump campaign, which resumed in-person field operations in some states in early June -- and prevents the type of physical contact with voters that usually defines the run-up to the general election. But Biden campaign officials say their more cautious approach is reflective of the American public's stance on what steps need to be taken to curb the spread of COVID-19.
 
"I think the public wants to see leadership right now, which we are doing by taking the responsible approach that keeps people safe. That's what people want to see right now, as opposed to the approach to the Trump campaign is taking," T.J. Ducklo, national press secretary for the Biden campaign, told ABC News.
 
The virtual-first campaigning has placed an even higher importance on state teams as the face of the campaign, especially as COVID-19 had kept their candidate from the critical states, campaign officials say.
 
Still, the campaign faces the difficult task of competing with a well-funded Trump reelection effort that as of mid-June had more than 1,100 staff members in 23 target states, including state directors in each, according to a Republican official.
 
Overall, the Biden campaign is prioritizing flexibility amid a political landscape that, in the time since the former vice president began to pull away from the Democratic primary field in early March, has been fundamentally reshaped by a global pandemic and a national reckoning on race relations.
 
"Four months ago we didn't know just how much the coronavirus would impact the campaign," Ridder said. "So things change fast in this world and our goal is to be prepared."