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| Joe Biden Needs to Bulk Up His Team. He’s Hiring a New Campaign Manager. | Joe Biden Needs to Bulk Up His Team. He’s Hiring a New Campaign Manager. |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced on Thursday that he had hired Jennifer O’Malley Dillon as his new campaign manager, elevating a veteran Democratic strategist as he tries to scale up his limited organization and pivot toward President Trump and the general election. | |
| Ms. O’Malley Dillon, 43, managed former Representative Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign last year and before that was a top aide on former President Barack Obama’s re-election team. | |
| Presidential campaigns always expand as they transition from the primary to the fall election, which Mr. Biden is clearly doing after building a near-insurmountable delegate lead against Senator Bernie Sanders. | Presidential campaigns always expand as they transition from the primary to the fall election, which Mr. Biden is clearly doing after building a near-insurmountable delegate lead against Senator Bernie Sanders. |
| But by tapping Ms. O’Malley Dillon as campaign manager, Mr. Biden is also signaling to Democratic donors and elected officials that he knows he has to broaden an operation that, until his Super Tuesday success, had been underfunded. | But by tapping Ms. O’Malley Dillon as campaign manager, Mr. Biden is also signaling to Democratic donors and elected officials that he knows he has to broaden an operation that, until his Super Tuesday success, had been underfunded. |
| Mr. Biden enjoyed a sudden reversal of fortune in South Carolina last month that has extended into March, but he was unable to build the sort of expansive organization enjoyed by most presidential front-runners. He had no staff members on the ground in many of the Super Tuesday states he won. | |
| Well before that, though, his organization prompted considerable grumbling from longtime Democratic officials, in part because it was not always responsive and in part because it was, like all of Mr. Biden’s past campaigns, a multi-headed Hydra consisting of advisers old and new. | |
| Even on the day of the vote in South Carolina, which would turn his campaign around, Mr. Biden’s most prized supporter said he desperately needed to make changes. | |
| “I’m not going to sit idly by and watch people mishandle this campaign,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement helped propel Mr. Biden to victory there. | |
| By installing Ms. O’Malley Dillon now, Mr. Biden is effectively trying to catch his organization up to his success and status as the Democratic front-runner. | |
| And the former vice president still has considerable work to do to unify his party, which is deeply divided along generational and ideological lines. The youngest and most liberal voters supported Mr. Sanders in this week’s primaries, exit polls showed, even as Mr. Biden enjoyed commanding victories over all. | |
| Before she can fully turn to taking on Mr. Trump, Ms. O’Malley Dillon first must work to mollify Mr. Sanders and, in what may be an even greater challenge, his die-hard supporters. | |
| Mr. Biden already shook up his campaign in February, installing Anita Dunn, a longtime adviser, as his chief strategist. She is expected to remain in that role. | |
| Greg Schultz, Mr. Biden’s original campaign manager, is also planning to stay on the campaign and work with the Democratic National Committee, state parties and convention organizers, according to Democrats briefed on the plans. |