President Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign said Wednesday that it’s essentially entering the general election phase of the 2024 cycle now that former President Donald Trump has won New Hampshire’s GOP primary.
“The results out of New Hampshire confirm that Donald Trump has all but locked up the GOP nomination and the election-denying anti-freedom MAGA movement has completed its takeover of the Republican Party,” Biden-Harris campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez told reporters on a press call.
The choice American voters face in November is coming into sharp focus, she said; voters will have to choose between Trump, who she said is “running a campaign of revenge and retribution that threatens American democracy,” and Biden and Harris, who are trying to “move the country forward and make life better for working people.”
“So it’s with that clear contrast on full display that we enter the general election phase of this campaign,” Chávez Rodríguez said. “While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris head into the general election, with a winning message, the support of a united party and strong grassroots enthusiasm, Republicans are uniting behind an extreme and losing front-runner.”
Biden’s principal deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said on the call that the primary election cycle so far has shown that Trump is struggling to gain the support of independent voters. Fulks said that Trump and Republicans have “blown through major resources” during the GOP primary, while the Biden-Harris campaign is “scaling up our operation.”
The Biden campaign, he said, entered this election year with more cash on hand than any Democratic presidential candidate in history at this point in the cycle.
“We’re going to spend every day until Nov. 5 reminding voters of the clear choice they will face next November,” Fulks said. “It’ll be a choice between a candidate who wakes up every single day fighting to make life better for working people and is running to save our democracy, and a candidate who spends every day thinking about himself, retribution and revenge.”
Campaign officials on the call said that they now have a presence in all battleground states and indicated they plan to continue ramping up their efforts now that the GOP primary race appears to be almost over.
NBC News projected Tuesday night that Trump inched closer to the Republican presidential nomination by beating former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in New Hampshire’s primary. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, is the only candidate left in the primary race against Trump after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign over the weekend.
With 93% of the vote in, Trump was leading Haley, 54.4% to 43.3%, on Wednesday morning in New Hampshire. Trump won Iowa’s GOP caucuses last week.
Despite her loss, Haley signaled Tuesday night that she’s not ready to quit. The South Carolina GOP primary will take place on Feb. 24. On Wednesday morning, her campaign launched a second ad in her state, highlighting her record as governor.