Biden becomes a top Harris surrogate as they split up on the campaign trail

Washington (CNN) — Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden worked to shore up support among key constituencies during separate events Monday, an example of their strategic attempt to divide and conquer the campaign trail with the race to November heating up.

In battleground Pennsylvania, a must-win state for Harris, Biden spoke to a Philadelphia conference attended by leaders of historically Black colleges and universities. For the fourth time in a week, Biden’s official remarks began with a nod to his onetime running mate, who’s now at the top of the ticket.

“I want to get to something straight at the outset,” Biden told the audience, to cheers. “I love Kamala!”

Harris, meanwhile, met with a key Democratic constituency behind closed doors: Union members. The vice president held a roundtable discussion with rank-and-file members of the influential Teamsters union, whose leadership has been withholding an endorsement before learning more specifics on each candidates’ platform for organized labor.

The divided ground game by the vice president and her boss-turned-top surrogate, aides say, is all part of a plan.

“We’ve got to be everywhere, blocking and tackling,” one Harris aide told CNN.

Harris is working to strike a delicate balance between embracing the Biden-era policies that voters like while ensuring the electorate she’d represent generational change from her predecessor, whose approval rating has been underwater through much of his presidency. And on the campaign trail – and the debate stage – she’s now pointing to her own policy platform and messaging, establishing some distance from the current administration.

Biden and Harris have appeared in an official capacity together at least four times since she’s ascended to the top of the ticket – welcoming Americans released by Russia at Joint Base Andrews, touting lower drug prices through Medicare negotiations, participating in September 11 commemorative events and speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual Phoenix awards dinner.

But only once have they been side by side in a campaign capacity, which advisers say is likely to be an increasingly rare occurrence going forward. On Labor Day, Harris and Biden appeared with a half-dozen labor leaders at a Pittsburgh union hall for a raucous rally focused on working-class issues.

But the optics appeared to favor the principal rather than the No. 2. Cheers of “Thank you, Joe” erupted at various times throughout the delivery of his remarks. Even though they were allotted the same amount of time, Biden spoke for 10 minutes longer. And when the event ended, Biden’s motorcade and plane departed before Harris’, as is custom for the president.

In addition to avoiding those awkward moments, dividing and conquering carries its own benefits.  They can cover far more ground. And they can fill more seats. Harris packs ten thousand-seat arenas, whereas Biden events skew far smaller. In Pittsburgh – the union hall where the two spoke together – reached the fire marshal’s capacity, which was 600.

Still there are unusual moments where the distance between Biden and Harris is on display. One of those came in last week’s debate when former President Donald Trump – Harris’ Republican opponent – attacked the vice president by saying, “She’s trying to get away from Biden. ‘I don’t know the gentleman,’ she says. She is Biden.”

Harris delivered a punch that, while intended for her Republican opponent, also landed hard at the White House.

“Clearly, I am not Joe Biden, and I am certainly not Donald Trump. And what I do offer is a new generation of leadership for our country,” she replied.

Still, if the moment wounded Biden, he hasn’t let on. Even watching Harris do what he failed disastrously to do during his own debate with Trump, Biden has evinced only pride in his vice president, not bitterness. Harris’ commanding debate performance was “another validating moment” for the president, according to a senior adviser.

In some ways, Biden’s decision to cede the Democratic ticket to Harris has allowed him room for other parts of his life. He watched the debate from his room at the JW Marriott Essex House in New York, where he’d traveled to attend a birthday party for one of his granddaughters at an Upper East Side Italian restaurant — the type of trip that would have been impossible if he was still the nominee.

A day later, as he was visiting a firehouse in Pennsylvania on the anniversary of 9/11, he jokingly put on a Trump 2024 hat offered by a support of the former president – a moment that landed much differently than it would have if Trump was still his rival for the presidency.

And when, during that interaction, the Trump supporter called the president an “old fart,” the moment felt somehow more jovial now that Biden’s advanced age is no longer a central issue in the campaign.

There’s precedent for splitting up on the trail. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore sought distance from scandal-marred President Bill Clinton as he campaigned against George W. Bush. And in 2020, Biden and former President Barack Obama – as private citizens, four years after leaving office – did not appear together until the final weeks of the race.

Aides believe Biden can still help in areas of Pennsylvania, for example, and the president has discussed a tour of the Keystone State with its governor, Josh Shapiro.

Biden is now one of several high profile surrogates the Harris campaign will seek to deploy. Obama and his wife, Michelle, along with Bill and Hillary Clinton, are also expected to stump for Harris in the leadup to November.

Positioning Biden among the roster of other high-wattage Democratic talent will be a sensitive operation, one person familiar with the matter acknowledged, but one the campaign remains eager for.

And Biden remains eager to promote her.

Speaking at the Black Excellence Brunch the White House co-hosted on Friday, Biden made his enthusiasm abundantly clear as he nodded to the possibility she could make history as the first female Black president.

“Kamala wanted to be here today, but she’s traveling,” Biden told the crowd on the White House South Lawn. “She’s always there with us. We’ll always be there for her.”

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