President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign took a significant step in its efforts to court Republican voters ahead of November’s election on Thursday, bringing on a new director to lead outreach to those in the GOP skeptical of former President Donald Trump, their party’s presumptive nominee, according to a Biden campaign official. 

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign took a significant step in its efforts to court Republican voters ahead of November’s election on Thursday, bringing on a new director to lead outreach to those in the GOP skeptical of former President Donald Trump, their party’s presumptive nominee
  • The campaign is tapping Austin Weatherford, who served as chief of staff to Adam Kinzinger, to head up the efforts, with the title of National Republican Engagement Director, a Biden campaign official said
  • The move builds on a strategy already being deployed by the Biden camp to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, particularly through grassroots efforts 
  • The campaign has made clear it believes there is a subset of voters on the other side of the aisle who may be open to the Democratic president’s message, especially after former GOP candidate Nikki Haley exited the race for the White House 

The campaign is tapping Austin Weatherford to head up the efforts, with the title of National Republican Engagement Director, the official said. Weatherford spent a decade as chief of staff to Adam Kinzinger, the former Republican congressman who served on the select committee investigating Jan. 6, voted to impeach Trump and has become one of the party’s most outspoken critics of the former president. 

The move builds on a strategy already being deployed by the Biden camp to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans, particularly through grassroots efforts, a campaign official noted. 

The campaign has made clear it believes there is a subset of voters on the other side of the aisle who may be open to the Democratic president’s message, especially after former GOP candidate Nikki Haley exited the race for the White House. 

Not long after Haley’s departure, Biden’s team sought to move on the void her absence may have left, saying there was a place in the campaign for her supporters and releasing an ad in suburban areas of battleground states where she performed well that highlighted Trump’s criticisms of the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations. 

Since then, Haley has continued to bring in votes in GOP primaries despite no longer being in the race. 

The Biden campaign has been working “behind the scenes” to court such voters, even holding meetings with Haley supporters. 

Despite her increased criticisms of the former president toward the end of her campaign, Haley last month said she was going to vote for Trump in November. Trump responded by saying Haley would “be on our team in some form.”

After Haley dropped out of the race in March, Trump invited her supporters to join the “greatest movement in the history of our Nation,” while also attacking “many of her voters” as “Radical Left Democrats.”

Along with the Biden campaign’s own outreach it notes several Republican groups critical of Trump, such as Republican Voters Against Trump and the Republican Accountability Project, have committed to spending cash to oppose the former president’s election bid. 

With Weatherford now on board, the Biden camp is expected to ramp up its outreach to GOP voters ahead of what is likely to be a tight race in November, according to polls.