Parties and Candidates

In Defying the Odds, we discuss the 2016 campaign. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms. The 2020 race, the subject of our next book, is well under  way.  Social media platforms are a big part of the story.

Reid J. Epstein and Shane Goldmacher at NYT:

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee have agreed to a joint fund-raising accord and installed the Biden campaign’s choice as the D.N.C.’s chief executive, the latest signs that the party’s presumptive presidential nominee has consolidated control over its broader functions.

The new agreement, which party officials said would be made formal on Friday, will allow the former vice president to raise $360,600 from individual donors, with $5,600 going to the Biden campaign and the rest earmarked for the party committee.

At the request of the Biden campaign, Mary Beth Cahill, a D.N.C. senior adviser who briefly served as its interim chief executive in 2018, will take over from Seema Nanda. Ms. Cahill, a longtime operative for the party, served as campaign manager for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. Kerry is a longtime friend of and 2020 campaign surrogate for Mr. Biden. Ms. Nanda will leave the D.N.C.

The moves come as the Biden campaign exercises greater influence on the national committee, an effort that typically gets underway after a presidential nomination is assured. In the past, that has involved sending a team of aides to the party’s headquarters on South Capitol Street, but the coronavirus restrictions mean the Biden team will take over a party working from home.

Politico Morning Score:

THE REELECT — Different arms of Trumpworld are taking diverging paths forward. "The Republican National Committee has launched a massive effort to reach some 20 million swing voters to make an affirmative case for his performance. But Trump campaign officials are taking a different approach: Rather than devoting resources to boost Trump's numbers, which haven't moved materially since he was elected, they want to go scorched earth against Joe Biden," POLITICO's Alex Isenstadt wrote . "The deliberations illustrate how the highest ranks of the Republican Party are grappling with the uncertainty the coronavirus crisis has injected into the race — and how best to prepare for a general election that looks nothing like what they'd been anticipating."

Some advisers argue "there's little public appetite in a slash-and-burn campaign at a time when Americans are suffering. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump adviser and ally, said the president should wait until the late August convention to begin a full-fledged campaign and instead focus on dealing with the crisis. Dealing with it effectively, he contended, would virtually cement Trump's reelection. ... Yet campaign officials see reason to begin nuking Biden, especially as the former vice president ramps up his attacks. Liberal outside groups have spent millions of dollars on TV ads in battleground states going after Trump."