NBC NEWS
WASHINGTON — With a verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money trial set to come as soon as next week, President Joe Biden’s campaign is exploring a shift to a new, more aggressive posture, according to two people familiar with the strategy.
Regardless of the outcome, top Biden campaign officials plan to stress to voters that Trump will be on the ballot in the fall and that no potential court proceeding will change that fact.
A person familiar with the discussions summed it up this way: “Donald Trump’s legal troubles are not going to keep him out of the White House. Only one thing will do that: voting this November for Joe Biden.”
If Trump is found guilty at his state trial in New York City, the Biden campaign will also consider whether to brand him as a “convicted felon,” this person added. “It’s an open question.”
Campaign officials are also weighing whether to amplify that kind of messaging with key surrogates on the airwaves or an ad buy or both. Those conversations are ongoing, as well, the second source said.
“The only way to truly stop Trump is to defeat him once and for all at the ballot box and not expect a conviction to play a huge role,” said Jim Messina, a Democratic strategist who was a campaign manager for former President Barack Obama. “The campaign’s job is to remind voters why they already voted Trump out and convince them to turn out for Biden by making this a choice between two vastly different candidates.
“Yes, one of them could soon be a convicted criminal, but that doesn’t matter as much to voters as the issues that directly impact their lives,” he added.
The campaign views the conclusion of the trial as one of the campaign’s inflection points, one at which the minute-by-minute sideshow of courtroom drama has concluded and the time for voters to focus on what’s at stake in November has arrived, one of the sources said.
Even now, with planning for the parties’ summer nominating conventions well underway, some voters still say they aren’t convinced it will be Trump and Biden on the ballot. But Biden aides say they believe that, once the trial ends, the reality of the race will be much clearer to the electorate, especially as the two candidates prepare for the first general election debate, which is scheduled for June 27, and other big moments, like the Republican convention in July and the Democratic convention a month later.
The Biden team expects to send a message if Trump is acquitted or there is a hung jury that voters shouldn’t wait for the outcome of his other legal issues to be determinative, either. The Biden team believes that Trump will be the nominee and that nothing in the legal realm would change that.
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