The chair of the president’s reelection campaign, Jen O’Malley Dillon, is a legend in her business. Born in Boston and educated at Tufts—where she majored in political science, and, way more important, was the captain of the softball team—J.O.D. got her start in presidential politics on Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, where she quickly built her reputation as one of the great field organizers of her or any generation. From there, she ascended the ziggurat of Democratic operatives methodically, skillfully, without a slip: from Iowa field director and Iowa state director for John Edwards in 2004 and 2008, respectively; to battleground state director and deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, respectively; then chair of the D.N.C. Unity Reform Commission after the 2016 election, and campaign manager for Beto O’Rourke’s much-hyped but short-lived primary bid in 2020.

And then, in the spring of 2020, J.O.D. was handed an assignment that many considered impossible: general election campaign manager for a candidate considered by most Republicans, many Democrats, and much of the punditocracy to be too old, too frail, and/or too “sleepy” (per the forever amped-up incumbent, Donald Trump) to win the White House. And yet, she pulled it off, becoming the first female campaign manager in history to install a Democrat in the Oval Office. 

J.O.D. spent the first three years of Biden’s term serving as White House deputy chief of staff. But in January, she decamped from Washington for Wilmington to take over running the reelect alongside Biden’s longtime chief strategist, Mike Donilon. Since then, she hasn’t done a single extended, recorded, on-the-record interview—until now. Famously hard-nosed, clear-headed, and nonsense-free, her tendency to avoid the press owes much to her allergy to bullshit and reflexive aversion to superficial spin. And yet, in a nearly hourlong conversation for my podcast (condensed here for space and edited for clarity), the confidence she expressed about Biden again defeating Trump in 2024 was unwavering and absolute.

Which, of course, raises two connected questions: Has J.O.D., as more than a few fretful Democrats believe about the whole of Bidenworld, taken leave of her senses and slipped into abject delusion about the state of her boss as an effective candidate and the force of the headwinds he is facing? Or, maybe, just maybe, does J.O.D. know something the doubters don’t?

Debate Prep

John Heilemann: The debate is less than a week away. If you go back and screen the 2020 Biden-Trump debates, they’re unwatchable—the endless crosstalk, the interruptions. That’s the kind of stuff the new debate rules are supposed to stop. How confident are you that those rules will work?

Jen O’Malley Dillon: I’m confident that Joe Biden is going to stand on that stage, and he is going to show what he showed in 2020—that he is in this for all the right reasons. He’s focused on delivering for the American people, and him standing next to Donald Trump is the best way to show that. Do I think rules are going to protect the American people from whatever Donald Trump might say? Of course not. But I do think having this [debate] really be serious is what the American people want. So, this is a great opportunity, earlier in this cycle than ever before, for the two of them to stand together and for [President Biden] to talk about what he’s done and what he’s fighting for—and not having an audience, not having distractions, not having to worry about Covid, I think all those things are better for the American people.

The last big moment where President Biden was in front of a huge national audience was the State of the Union—not long after Special Counsel Robert Hur had put out his report, in which he opined about Biden’s memory and so on. One objective for you guys then was to reassure Democrats worried about whether the president was up to the challenge of facing off against Trump. Do you think of this debate as the next big moment like that?

First of all, between the State of the Union and now there’s been 50, a hundred moments like that, [such as] standing in Normandy, being on the world stage with G7 leaders, and helping hold coalitions together. But at the end of the day, of course, it is legitimate to talk about the president’s age and for the American people to want to make sure that he’s up for the job. He knows that’s legitimate, and that’s why he’s tackled it head-on. Our first ad we did in the campaign addressed that. 

But I think, every day, he has an opportunity to show the American people the power of his vision and his ideas. Yes, of course, this matters, the two of them standing side by side. And it’s an opportunity not just for the American people to see Joe Biden in all the things that we see every day, but also to see Donald Trump.

And I think that is a big part of why this [debate] really does matter. Is it the be-all and the end-all of the whole [campaign]? Of course not. It is a moment in time that will have impact. And then you’ll see the president at [the] NATO [summit in Washington, D.C., in early July], you’ll see [the Republican] convention, you’ll see our convention. We have really, really big moments coming up throughout [the rest of the campaign].

Six in Six

Let’s talk about the state of the race. This week, a new Fox News national poll put Biden at 50 and Trump at 48. The latest Morning Consult national tracking poll has Biden at 44 and Trump at 43. Those are both, obviously, well within the margin of error; they are statistical ties. But Trump’s peak in the polling averages was in January, when he had a four-point lead. And according to 538, Biden has taken a narrow lead for the first time this year. 

Now, national polls are one thing and the numbers in the battleground states are different. But in those states, on the battlefields where you’re fighting, are you guys also seeing an uptick?

Yes. But look, fundamentally, everyone in this country has to understand that this is a very close election and it’s going to be close. And I get [that Democrats] wish it weren’t the case, [but] the race in 2020, the 2016 race, the 2012 race—[all were] close. We are a polarized nation in many ways. [But], significantly, from when Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 [felony] counts, we have seen movement in our direction and away from Trump. There’s also still lots of folks in this country that, yes, know this election’s happening, and yes, they know that it’s coming up, but they’re just not that engaged in it now. And those people are starting to tune in a little bit more.

I had someone say to me earlier today, “Maybe Donald Trump has peaked.” There’s not a lot of room for growth for him when you look at his coalition and how he’s expressing to the folks that voted for Nikki Haley and other Republicans: that he doesn’t need them. Well, we welcome them, and we see a lot of opportunity to continue to grow the people that are with Joe Biden by doing the work of telling his story, what he’s about, and what his vision is. And I don’t see that on Donald Trump’s side.

Seems to me that the Democratic bed-wetting is picking up again ahead of the debate. Do you sense that, too? And, if so, why do you think it’s happening given the trendline in Biden’s favor in the numbers?

I’d answer that in two ways. First, thank God I am out of the child-rearing stages of having to worry so much about bed-wetting, and that’s really where I’d like to keep that conversation. But I think people understand the stakes. Our people understand the stakes, and it is not abstract. And so, of course, people are worried. Of course, people look at Donald Trump and they hear what he says from his own mouth, and they know [that if Trump wins] it is actually going to be worse than it was last time. And we’re doing a lot to try to continue to tell that story. But I get it: People are worried. In [traditional Democratic] communities, the people that are with Joe Biden, they’re going to be on the receiving end of whatever terrible thing Donald Trump, as dictator on Day One, is going to do. And so I take that very seriously. All of us do. 

We have a lot of work to do to make our case and to make sure that people see themselves in this campaign and see themselves in the path that we’re moving forward. But I also think, look, a lot of our folks would love to believe that if you have someone who is convicted of 34 [felony] counts by a jury of their peers, that he wouldn’t be running for president and [that if he were running] the race wouldn’t be close. And I get that feeling, too. And so at the end of the day, I think our job as a campaign is to channel that worry into action, and that’s really what we’re building for.

I’ve heard people in your world talk about how 6 percent of voters in six states will decide this election. As a reminder for non-junkies: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia are the six states we’re talking about—the undeniable battleground states. We can have a discussion about whether you want to include North Carolina.

Oh, we will have that discussion.

Okay, but for now, let’s focus on the notion of 6 percent in six states. Is that how you think about the universe of persuadable voters—undecided voters, up-for-grabs voters, whatever you want to call them—in 2024?

Here’s how I would approach this. We have multiple paths to victory. We can talk about the states. There are a number of people that have been with us before, who are people we see every day that the president’s fighting for, but are the exact ones who are not engaged in this race. And so they are a group of persuadable voters we need to reach to make sure that they know what’s at stake and that they’re going to vote. 

[Then there are] the people who are actually on the edges and undecided, [and among them] there’s a whole new cohort that has come in since 2020, who were not available to us [then] who we saw vote in 2022, post-Dobbs. They are the same people who, in primary after primary on the Republican side, protested Donald Trump. 

And I definitely think they’re gettable. Is it a small number of states in the scheme of things and a small number of voters who ultimately are on the margins? Yes. But our programs and our campaign is built for a much broader strategy to reach all of our folks and really engage them now. 

To a lot of folks, 2024 looks like a rerun of 2020. But you think the races are fundamentally different even though it’s the same two guys on the ballot. Talk about that and what it means for your strategy to get to 270 electoral votes.

2024 is a completely different race, and I think that if we approached it the way we did in 2020, we’d lose because…

Different, how?

Different in so many ways. Just very fundamentally, we are building an operation in every single battleground state. We have thousands of staff, we have hundreds of offices for people in communities all across these states for people to come together and volunteer and gather and be with each other and talk about what they’re worried about and then channel that into action. That didn’t really happen in any way, shape, or form in 2020 [because of Covid]. But also, we’ve spent a lot of time really trying to better figure out how to organize and how to think through how to bring people into our campaign.

By trade, by every fiber of my being, I’m an organizer. That’s how I started. That’s how I will end. I believe in that being so fundamental to how we’re successful. But I also think that you have to really re-look at how people in their lives are engaging, and you’ve got to find a way to tap into that so it feels in stride with everything else they’re doing. So that doesn’t mean you’re reinventing the wheel. It doesn’t mean this is all about new fucking widgets. It means it’s about a blended approach that reaches a person like my mom, who might want to come into an office and be with her friends and do postcards, and people who are young, who matter a great deal, but who don’t see themselves [getting involved in that way].

The Blue Wall Fall

If you boil it down, what you’re saying is that 2020 was a national election; there were battleground states, but you ran the campaign like a national referendum on Trump. But in 2024, you’re running a half-dozen targeted state campaigns—which gets us to the topic of your paths to victory. I named six states. You’d agree those are battlegrounds, yes?

Yes.

And you’re saying you see North Carolina also as a battleground state?

Yes.

Florida?

No.

Thank you. I was afraid you were going to lie. So, then, let me float my theory that, in the end, what we’re going to see is what I think of as “blue wall fall,” where you guys wind up spending almost all of your time and money on Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—because if you win those three, plus that one congressional district in Nebraska, NE-2, which allocates a single electoral vote and Biden carried by six points in 2020, that gets you to 270 and you’re home.

The job of the campaign is to keep as many battleground states in play for as long as possible so we can navigate any flexibility in the race. If you look at 2020, Georgia and Arizona weren’t even in play at all at this point, and certainly were not traditional battleground states. So at the end of the day, all we have to do is get to 270, and the easiest path is certainly [by preserving] the blue wall, where there’s a lot of core-coalition strength for the president. But I am bullish on North Carolina, and I don’t fuck around in saying that—because I was bullish on Arizona [four years ago] and that’s because we looked at it very closely.

Okay, so North Carolina is a battleground state because…?

Because we lost it by just 1.3 percentage points in 2020 and we did not play there, number one. Number two, obviously, there’s some element of demographics, but I don’t believe that’s enough. But what’s happening in North Carolina—the extreme laws that are moving through [the state legislature], a restrictive abortion law there that’s worse than most other places in the country, a beyond-extreme candidate running for governor in [Mark] Robinson—if you put all those pieces together… we really see that [the state] is in play.

Is North Carolina more winnable for Biden than Nevada?

I don’t know, but I don’t look at it that way. Nevada has always been an extremely tough state. Of all the battlegrounds that Democrats have won very consistently, it’s probably the hardest of them all. It closes late. It is very low-information. Some of the issues that we all saw across the whole country during Covid, like the economy and housing, were issues [in Nevada] well before then. And so I actually think there’s a lot of work we always tend to put in late into Nevada. We’ve moved all that forward and we’re doing it now, and I think that that provides us a lot of real opportunity there. I’m bullish on Nevada, too.

Is North Carolina more winnable than Georgia at this point?

Well, I think they’re totally different states.

I understand. But you’re going to have to make resource decisions. Do you imagine in October you’ll be spending more time, effort, and money in North Carolina than in Georgia?

We are going all out in Georgia, the same way we’re going all out in North Carolina. We are psyched that the debate is in Atlanta. Two cycles ago, Georgia wasn’t even a state we ever tried. I remember in 2008, we tried to build a campaign in Georgia, and it just wasn’t there. [But today], not only are we strong [in Georgia], we have the people that led the successful campaigns there helping lead our national operation. I feel really good about our path there.

Message to the Bed-Wetters

What do you say when people ask if there’s any chance Biden will either step aside or be replaced as the Democratic nominee?

The first thing I’ll say is that Joe Biden is going to win, period. And I’m not saying that because I wish it to be so, I’m saying that because I know it’ll be so by who he is as a leader and what we are building as a campaign. It’s okay for people to be worried, because we understand the stakes, but now is the time to be clear about the choice: There is just one choice. 

Last question, short and sweet: Can you say what the campaign’s message is in three sentences or less?

At the end of the day, Joe Biden is fighting for the American people and Donald Trump is only in it for himself. Joe Biden’s lowering costs, he’s protecting us and our freedoms, and he is focused on protecting democracy. He is creating opportunity for people in this country. And there is a lot more work to do, and his vision for 2024 is one that’s going to help the American people and build on what he’s been doing. In contrast to Donald Trump—who is only out for himself and out for people like him—who is not going to let anything stand in the way of taking care of himself.

That was more than three sentences, but I heard a message there.

Can I just add one thing? We are going to win. But it is because the people of this country take action and take action now. For every single person who is worried, go do something about it. Get a yard sign. Go on Facebook and say you support Joe Biden. Go do your own fucking TikToks. That is what we need now. This debate is going to help put into clarity that there is one choice. And every single person that’s bed-wetting—hate to use that phrase, thanks for putting it back in my head—take action. Do something. You have power. Take it.