In a new memo released after the Republican National Convention, Biden’s campaign reiterated that the president remains the Democratic nominee despite ongoing disagreements within the party over its future direction. The memo also touched on Project 2025, which Donald Trump has rejected.
“Joe Biden has made it very clear that he is in this race and in it to win. Further, he is the presumptive nominee and has no plans for a replacement nominee,” Dan Kanninen, the Biden campaign’s battleground states director, wrote in a memo obtained by The Hill.
“In a few weeks, Joe Biden will be the official nominee. It’s time to stop fighting. The only person who wins when we fight is Donald Trump.”
Kanninen acknowledged that Biden’s age was a topic of discussion when the campaign spoke to voters, but argued it didn’t prevent voters from choosing Biden.
The memo also blasted Republicans over Project 2025, a policy proposal compiled by the Heritage Foundation, whose collaborators and authors include people with ties to the Trump administration.
Trump and his team have roundly rejected Project 2025, with senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita calling them a “nuisance” at the Republican National Convention this week.
“For voters deciding the outcome of the election in battleground states this week, the choice has become increasingly clear. Project 2025 poster boy J.D. Vance has cemented what we’ve known for months: If Donald Trump has his way, he will remake American government and life in the image of Project 2025: fewer entitlements, rising costs, and diminishing opportunity for the middle class,” Kanninen wrote in the memo.
“Project 2025 was on full display,” Kanninen argued in the memo, noting that former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Thomas Homan, “brought the architects of family separation to the table.” Project 2025 lists Homan as a contributor in policy reports.
Pointing to a sign circulated at the convention that read “Mass Deportations Now,” Kanninen suggested Vance’s speech offered a “glimpse” into their policy vision, which he argued “does absolutely nothing for the American people and amounts to a full-scale attack on women’s reproductive rights, the evisceration of the Affordable Care Act, and the shipping of manufacturing jobs overseas.”
The memo also detailed how the campaign is ramping up staffing in key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, where polls show Biden trailing or trailing Trump.
The memo came as several prominent Democrats called on Biden to drop out of the race, with Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who is in a fierce re-election battle, becoming the latest to join the call on Thursday night.
While the president and his team remain adamant that Biden will stay in office, the new voices have cast further doubt on Biden’s candidacy as Democrats prepare to swear in their nominee at their party convention next month.
