When President Biden announced his re-election campaign and two top staffers this week, the names of his closest and longest-serving advisers were not included.
A tight circle of senior officials, some of whom have known Mr. Biden longer than many of the soon-to-be-appointed members of the campaign team, will guide the president’s political strategy both in the White House and beyond. campaign time.
None of them have significant public figures. Of the six, only Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, are active Twitter accounts. But members of that group began making phone calls last weekend to offer positions to Mr. Biden’s campaign, only a few of which have been announced.
Officials in the White House and his nascent campaign insist that campaign manager Julie Chavez-Rodriguez will be authorized to lead Mr. Biden’s re-election bid. But multiple Democratic officials who have been involved in boosting his 2024 effort have made it clear that many important decisions will continue to be made by the president’s team of senior advisers.
According to two Biden advisers, the White House staff members who were involved in running the campaign were Ms. O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Zients, Anita Dunn, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricketti and Bruce Reed.
Here’s a look at the people at the center of the president’s political universe who will help guide his re-election bid.
Jeff Zients
Mr. Biden appointed Mr. Zients as his second chief of staff in January after Mr. Zients led the administration’s Covid vaccination program. He has secured a regular supply of pretzels to the West Wing from Call Your Mother, a Washington chain in which he was once a part owner. (Four days into his presidency, Mr. Biden ordered his motorcade to stop at one of the stores so his son Hunter could pick up an order.)
Mr. Zients has been involved in interviews and discussions about potential campaign team members and has a regular policy meeting with Mr. Biden.
Ms. Dunn also held senior roles under Democrats, including President Barack Obama. And she helped found SKDK, a large public affairs and political consulting firm that hires Democratic Party stalwarts. (She has faced questions over the years about the intersection of her government work and the firm’s business dealings.)
She is married to celebrity attorney Bob Bauer, a partnership that in 2009 led Newsweek to call them Washington’s new power couple. Mr. Bauer is also a close adviser to Mr. Biden, who served as Mr. Biden’s lawyer.
“By default, Anita is action,” said Jennifer Palmieri, who served as White House communications director for Mr. Obama. “In a hand-wringing party that the Democrats can be, she has a unique leadership style that helps move things forward.”
Steve Ricketti
Mr. Ricchetti, who served as Mr. Biden’s vice presidential chief of staff, is a longtime Biden confidant.
He has often acted as a conduit between Mr. Biden, donors and members of Congress. (Soon after Mr. Biden took office, Mr. Ricchetti’s brother gained attention for his work as a lobbyist; Mr. Ricchetti also worked as a lobbyist.)
“Steve is the best I’ve ever seen at managing relationships and listening to a lot of people,” said former Representative Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, who served as a senior adviser to Mr. Biden in the White House and as a national campaign co-chairman. of 2020. “Stevie knows the interplay between Congress and the White House.”
Asked if he could compare any of Biden’s top aides to characters from the TV series “The West Wing,” Mr. Richmond noted that Josh Lyman, the show’s fast-talking, heavy-handed White House deputy chief of staff, “holds results’.
“Maybe Josh’s Stevie,” he said. “He has a long memory.”
Mike Donilon
With the exception of Mr. Biden’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and Jill Biden, the first lady, Mr. Donilon has worked with Mr. Biden the longest of anyone in his inner circle.
An adviser to Mr. Biden since the early 1980s, the low-key Mr. Donilon regularly attended Georgetown University basketball games — even during the team’s final years of decline. (A native of Rhode Island, Mr. Donilon holds two degrees from the University of Washington.)
He comes from a family accomplished in politics. One brother, Tom Donilon, served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. Another, Terence Donilon, is the chief spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston. Mike Donilon’s sister-in-law, Catherine Russell, was Dr. Biden’s chief of staff when Mr. Biden was vice president.
Mr. Donilon, who was Mr. Biden’s chief strategist during the 2020 campaign, is now a senior adviser and travels frequently with the president.
“These are people who are very close to the president and are the reason he is president,” Cristobal Alex, a veteran of Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign and the White House, said of Mr. Donilon and other top Biden advisers. “That kind of basic guidance is going to play an incredibly important role in his selection.”
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon
A relatively late addition to Mr. Biden’s inner circle, Ms. O’Malley Dillon had senior roles in both of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns and was campaign manager for Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 White House bid before Mrs. Dunn to recruit her to take over what was then a hopeless Biden presidential campaign.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon became campaign manager just as the pandemic hit. She was responsible for transforming a thin operation into a serious general election apparatus, and she was doing so when the world shut down, managing the candidacy of the then seventy-year-old candidate who would spend much of the rest of the campaign off the beaten track.
“Jen has great political instincts and I’ve never seen anyone keep the buses and trains running on time like she does,” Mr Richmond said.
Known for her skills as a political organizer and her habit of answering phone calls late into the campaign while riding her Peloton stationary bike, Ms. O’Malley Dillon became the first woman to run a winning Democratic presidential campaign and now is Deputy Chief of Staff of the White House.
Bruce Reid
Like Mr. Biden, Mr. Reid has spent his career as a centrist Democrat in Washington. He worked for years for the Democratic Leadership Council, which aimed to focus the party on the political environment, and had significant influence during the Clinton administration.
Co-author of a book with Rahm Emanuel and a one-time columnist for Slate — in 2009 he called on the Baseball Hall of Fame to “put any player found to have used steroids on the permanently ineligible list” — Mr. Mr. Reid worked for Al Gore and Bill Clinton before becoming Biden’s chief of staff during the Obama administration.
An Idaho native whose affection for his home state extends to his personal e-mail, Mr. Reid is Mr. Biden’s top political adviser and travels with him on domestic trips.