As Democratic presidential front runner Joe Biden gears up for the general election in November, his campaign has decided to hire former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke’s campaign manager.
Biden plans to announce Thursday that he has tapped as his new campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, who directed O’Rourke’s bid for the Democratic nomination before he dropped out of the 2020 race in November.
In February, after Biden’s anemic performance in the Iowa caucuses, Anita Dunn, a former senior Obama adviser, joined Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz in running the campaign. Schultz is slated to move to a new role, working with Democratic National Committee and convention organizers as well as donor outreach for the general election.
The move to expand his campaign operation comes after concerns from senior Democratic strategists and others that Biden’s campaign lacked the funding and organization required to go up against the Trump campaign as Biden moves closer to clinching the nomination.
Biden’s flagging campaign received a shot in the arm last month when he won South Carolina’s primary election, triggering a wave of endorsements he rode to Super Tuesday, when the former vice president gained a firm lead in delegates over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and regained the status of national front runner.
O’Malley Dillon, 43, was the DNC’s executive director during former president Barack Obama’s first term and later became his deputy campaign manager during his reelection campaign in 2012.
Last year, she took on managing the 2020 presidential campaign of O’Rourke, who soared into the national spotlight in 2018 when he came close to beating conservative Senator Ted Cruz in Texas.