The Biden campaign reiterated in a new memo following the Republican National Convention that the president will be the Democratic nominee, even as the party remains embroiled in disagreement about the path forward. The memo also targeted Project 2025, which former President Trump has disavowed.
“Joe Biden has made it more than clear: he’s in this race and he’s in it to win it. Moreover, he’s the presumptive nominee, there is no plan for an alternative nominee,” wrote Dan Kanninen, Biden campaign battleground states director in the memo, obtained by The Hill.
“In a few short weeks, Joe Biden will be the official nominee. It is high past time we stop fighting one another. The only person who wins when we fight is Donald Trump.”
While Kanninen acknowledged Biden’s age comes up when the campaign speaks with voters, he argued it didn’t deter voters from choosing Biden anyway.
The memo also blasted Republicans on the issue of Project 2025, a set of policy proposals organized by the Heritage Foundation, whose collaborators and writers include those with ties to the Trump administration.
Trump and his team have disavowed Project 2025 altogether, with Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita calling them this week during the RNC a “pain in the a‑‑.”
“This week, the choice has become increasingly clear to the voters who will decide this election in the battleground states. Project 2025’s poster boy, J.D. Vance cements what we’ve known for months: if Donald Trump has his way, he will remake the American government and way of life into Project 2025’s image: fewer rights, higher costs, and less opportunity for the middle class,” Kanninen wrote in the memo.
Kanninen argued in the memo that “Project 2025 Was on Full Display,” noting that former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan “put the architect of family separation on the convention stage.” Project 2025 notes him as a contributor in its policy write-up.
Kanninen noted the “Mass Deportations Now” signs circulating at the convention and suggested Vance’s speech “offered a glimpse” in their policy vision, which he argued was “a whole lot of nothing for the American people, and an all-out assault on women’s reproductive rights, gutting the Affordable Care Act, and shipping manufacturing jobs abroad.”
The memo also outlined how the campaign was staffing up in battleground states in key states like Arizona, Georgia and Michigan — where polling has shown Biden either neck-in-neck or trailing Trump.
The memo comes as several high-profile Democrats have called on Biden to withdraw from the race. On Thursday night, Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.), who is in a tight reelection race, became the latest lawmaker to join that call.
The president and his team have remained adamant the Biden will stay in, though the new voices added to the mix have raised further questions about Biden’s candidacy and as Democrats prepare to coronate their nominee at their own convention next month.