The Republican National Committee is gearing up for the first presidential primary debate on Wednesday, where North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former Vice President Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott will face off in Milwaukee. Former President Donald Trump will skip the debate, instead releasing a taped interview that night with Tucker Carlson.
Democrats are also preparing for the event and are planning an aggressive response.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond, and other Dem officials will hold a press conference Wednesday at noon in Milwaukee with their “prebuttal” message that, according to Politico, will be two-fold: “our folks are good; the folks you are about to see are extreme.”
Democrats will also engage with targeted groups, including black men in the city and women voters in the Milwaukee suburb of Waukesha.
The left’s message will also get across through billboard campaigns and a billboard truck that will circle the debate venue reportedly “highlighting the records of the Republican candidates.”
Recommended
Three different billboards will be going up near Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, where the debate is being held. One has photos of President JOE BIDEN and Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, trumpeting four accomplishments: “Record number of new jobs; Lowering costs; Updating our nation’s roads and bridges; Protecting a woman’s right to choose nationwide.” The other two billboards feature photos of Trump, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Pence, Haley and Scott alongside a banner reading “2024 Republicans’ MAGA Agenda,” hitting the candidates on three issues: “Higher costs for working families; Tax giveaways for the rich; [a] National abortion ban.” (Politico Playbook)
Playbook also details the Democrats’ plans during the debate:
— The DNC has booked a plane to fly around Milwaukee on Wednesday night dragging a banner reading: “GOP 2024: A Race for the Extreme MAGA Base.”
— A DNC “war room” will push back in real-time on Twitter and will contact reporters when they feel like the record needs to be corrected. “We’re not going to take the bait at every turn, because that’s not a recipe for success,” one Biden campaign official tells Playbook. “You’ll see us chime in if we feel like we need to respond directly to something that is egregious.”
— There are also inchoate plans to respond to the Trump-Carlson interview. (Politico Playbook)
Overall, the Democrats will go with the strategy they pursued in 2022, which is painting all candidates as “Trumpian and extreme.” Expect to see plenty of surrogates hit the networks after the debate making this case in their analyses.
“We see very little difference between the candidates on stage,” a Biden campaign official told Politico. “We know they all have to stake out positions far to the right to win...Our primary objective will be reminding voters just how out of touch they are. The things that they say on the debate stage will not help them in a general election.”
