Biden to supercharge COVID-19 booster campaign ahead of holidays
This week, Vice President Joe Biden will become the first candidate to release a COVID-19 public health campaign that uses a multi-year budget in advance of the holidays, POLITICO has confirmed. The release of the 2020 Biden platform comes as the coronavirus task force in Washington has been weighing the role the next president will play as the virus sweeps across the country.
“This is a moment where he has a real opportunity, a real responsibility to get the job done,” said one source in Biden’s campaign. “We’re looking at a multi-year campaign.”
Biden has not yet decided when he will do the rollout for this full plan, which has yet to be finalized, but he is expected to release it before the first of the year. The full plan would include a comprehensive set of plans to contain the coronavirus, contain the public health crisis, and contain the economic fallout.
Biden is also planning his fourth separate fundraising push this year, according to an aide to the campaign. He has spent two days this week working on this, and has gotten a new donor for third quarter fundraising, the source said.
The campaign staff was working on plans to expand Biden’s “One America One Vote” platform, which was added to the 2020 platform this week, to include a plan to get people out voting.
Biden himself has called on everyone to vote, and has gone on record in various interviews in Washington to urge people to do so. That same week, Biden spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity to urge voters to “take out the fear and just go vote,” the source said.
Biden will have a busy week ahead of the holidays. He will be at the Democratic National Convention, speaking before it kicks off on the evening of Thursday. On Friday, he will be on “Fox News Sunday” to talk about his new plan.
Finally, on Monday, he’ll be at the New York City Democratic Party’s annual holiday dinner, along with his 2020 Democratic presidential campaign manager, Tanya Moutray.
On the campaign and personal level, Biden has enjoyed a number of health scares, including an early September diagnosis for an enlarged prostate that was treated with a medication known as a “proton pump inhibitor” that is not approved by the