Why Jill Biden could be the key to her husband’s reelection campaign

Jill Biden might be her husband’s best defender on the campaign trail.

For starters, she has experience straight-arming charging protesters and a childhood story about clocking a neighborhood bully in the face. But she’s also a relatable nonpolitician whose campaign trail presence is itself a response to the biggest criticism of President Joe Biden: that he’s too old to be running again.

“Voters in focus groups we’ve done solidly feel that if he weren’t up to running she wouldn’t have let him run,” Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said. “She’s a very important validator for him.”

Joe Biden is unpopular. At 80, he’s been a politician for five decades. And to Democrats’ frustration, it’s been a struggle to translate his big legislative accomplishments to everyday Americans heaving a collective “eh” as they look at their likely 2024 choices.

Jill Biden is a teacher, a mom, and a grandma, widely described as down-to-earth. Her background, coupled with this being her 15th campaign, makes her uniquely equipped to try to boost her husband’s standing.

Voters know the Biden family carefully considered whether to run again, said Lake, who has polled for the Biden campaign as well as independently. “They think of her as a proud wife, proud of her husband, proud of her family and that she would not let him be embarrassed.”

They also see her as someone normal. And there’s a long-running fascination with politicians acting like real people. A family trip to the beach made headlines last week.

“Voters crave authenticity,” Jill Biden’s former spokesman Michael LaRosa told The Inquirer. “She’s your typical suburban mom and grandmother, who has a slight Philly accent when she pronounces certain words like ‘coffee.’ It’s endearing and it’s what makes her his secret weapon.”

As Biden faces what is increasingly looking like a tight reelection battle, people who know the first lady say she’s gearing up to do whatever is needed — and the campaign says they’ll be turning to her a lot.

“She will continue to be a formidable presence on the stump,” campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said.

Sixteen months away from the presidential election, she was zig-zagging around the Northeast last week promoting “Bidenomics,” the president’s economic agenda. She schmoozed with supporters at seven fundraisers last month. She’s also preparing to teach two English classes a week at Northern Virginia Community College this fall.

During the travel-limited 2020 campaign, Jill Biden faced an onslaught of questions about her husband’s mental acuity, largely fueled by former President Donald Trump’s attacks and conservative coverage of campaign trail gaffes. This time, she’s a key player in rebutting concerns about his age. Should he win a second term, he’d be 86 by its end.

With attention on the GOP primary, Joe Biden is, so far, largely running for reelection by running the country. He’s avoided speaking much about Trump or the GOP field. His wife, meanwhile, has been candid about the man who often attacks her husband as well as her stepson, Hunter Biden, who faces charges on federal tax offenses and illegal gun possession.

The first lady warned at a fundraiser in Northern California last month of the “corruption and chaos” that she said Trump brought to the presidency.

“We cannot go back to those dark days,” she said. “With your help we won’t go back.”

LaRosa said he thinks that mama bear-like protective nature is relatable. “I don’t know any mother in America who wouldn’t be critical of a man obsessed with smearing and lying about her son,” LaRosa said. “Voters respect you decking your opponent after you’ve been punched in the gut, especially when it comes to defending your family.”

In the last campaign, Jill Biden said she got her grit from a middle-class upbringing in Hammonton, N.J., and Willow Grove. She’s remained an avid Philadelphia sports fan.

She touts her Philadelphia ties any chance she gets — a way to appeal in a key swing state but also to connect her middle-class upbringing to her husband’s policy goals.

Her candor has gotten her into some trouble, such as when she suggested both women’s NCAA basketball teams that played in the finals should visit the White House.

It can also endear her to an audience. At the National Governors Association’s annual meeting in Atlantic City last week she dutifully touted the administration’s “workforce hub initiative,” a program in five U.S. cities to boost workforce development. She paused to say she thinks it’s a terrible title for a program. “I don’t know how they came up with that name.”

Politicking didn’t always come naturally to Jill Biden.

“The first public speech I gave was terrifying,” Biden told a group of first ladies from Africa at a conference at Columbia University last week. “My hands trembled; my voice caught in my throat. I tripped over my words.”

She told the women about raising three kids and working full-time as a teacher while getting a graduate degree, as her then-senator husband commuted back and forth from Delaware.

Jill Biden has taken only three breaks from teaching over the course of her career, LaRosa said. One was when her daughter, Ashley, was born and then in the spring and fall of 2020. She returned to teaching after becoming first lady.

That background helps her connect, said Lake, the pollster. “They really like her teaching and that it’s at a community college, not in an ivory tower.”

Biden is particularly effective with suburban women, a key Democratic constituency, and on issues such as abortion rights.

“Philly people are not good at hiding our emotions,” said State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, who stumped with Jill Biden during the campaign in 2020. “We tell you exactly what we think. … When it comes to her and abortion, she’s talking as a mom, as a woman, as a grandma and you can feel that frustration.”

Alan Kessler, a longtime Philadelphia fundraiser, said donors like hearing from the first lady.

“She’s outspoken. She’ll tell you exactly what she thinks,” Kessler said. “And usually it matches up with his thinking, if not his talking.”

Increasingly, Jill Biden is going into more Republican rooms. Her three focus areas as first lady — military families, cancer research, and education — are largely bipartisan initiatives.

Her latest swing includes stops in Ohio and Georgia. The governors’ convention in Atlantic City brought together 20 governors from both parties, though she spoke to a smaller room of mostly Democratic governors and staff.

“Preparing our workforce is so much bigger than a blue or a red issue,” she said between talking about Jersey tomatoes and summers working in Ocean City. She also encouraged the suited-up crowd to get to the beach.

She injected her economics speech with some self-aware humor.

“You know Joe watched his dad struggle to find good work … because there were no jobs in Scranton,” she said.

“Did I say that right? Scranton,” she said, drawing out the long “a,” and pausing to vent: “Do you know how many times in a week I hear that word?”