Former Vice President turned 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he’s already putting together a White House transition team, in anticipation of winning the November presidential election.
It is not unusual for challenging presidential candidates to form up a team, ready to go in November, should the defeat the incumbent president, but Biden is forming up his “transition team” earlier than most, tapping Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE), who replaced him in the Senate, to lead the effort to flesh out a complete White House operations staff.
Kaufman released a statement Saturday outlining his efforts, saying that the Biden team is in the “very early stages of pre-transition planning,” and claiming that ongoing issues, like the coronavirus pandemic and recent racial unrest, make it more important than ever that Biden have an on-the-ground operation ready to go if he’s declared victorious.
“The next president will confront an ongoing global health pandemic and inherit an economy in its worst shape since the Great Depression,” Kaufman said. “No one will have taken office facing such daunting obstacles since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Joe Biden is prepared to meet these urgent challenges on the day he is sworn in as president, and begin the hard work of addressing the public health crisis and rebuilding an economy that puts working families first.”
“In that spirit, and to ensure continuity of government during such a critical moment for our country, we have begun the very early stages of pre-transition planning,” Kaufman added.
The coronavirus pandemic is of great concern to Democrats once again following President Donald Trump’s decision to return to campaign events, holding a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Saturday night. The economy has lost jobs, largely as a result of coronavirus-related lockdowns, but appears to be beginning a “v-shaped recovery,” with jobs and profits returning at a better-than-expected clip.
Although presidents generally benefit from re-election campaigns, Biden does seem to have the upper hand — at least currently. He is ahead in most national and state-based polls and, according to CBS News, beat Trump’s fundraising numbers for the first time, posting a record haul in the second quarter of 2020.
“The Republican National Committee announced Saturday that the Trump campaign, RNC and joint fundraising committees raised $74 million in May, a record for them in monthly fundraising. But for the first time in this election cycle, Joe Biden and the DNC brought in more money in a month than Mr. Trump, with Biden’s campaign reporting a more than $80 million cash haul in May,” CBS reported Sunday.
Trump still has more cash on hand, and Biden has benefitted from being well out of the public eye, making only a single media appearance in nearly two months. The former Veep has preferred to make short public appearances and has avoided the question-and-answer format of cable news.
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