Biden campaign beefs up its polling operation

President Joe Biden’s campaign is bringing on a slate of new pollsters to lead its number-crunching operation.

The group, which features several pollsters involved in efforts around Democrats' stronger-than-expected 2022 midterms, reflect a continued shift to broaden Biden’s polling operation beyond the team that worked on his first successful campaign against former President Donald Trump. The moves were shared first with POLITICO.

Several new pollsters, who were not directly involved in the 2020 Biden campaign, will be joining the shop: Geoff Garin, who has led research for major progressive advocacy groups and unions; and Jefrey Pollock, who has worked for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Nevada Sen. Jacky Rosen. Garin and Pollock led a project in 2022 that helped define Biden’s rhetoric around “MAGA Republicans.”

Molly Murphy, who served as the lead polling adviser to the Democratic Congressional Campaign in 2022 and advised North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Brenda Lee, who specializes in Black voters and also advised the DCCC’s independent expenditure unit in recent cycles, are also new additions.

Celinda Lake, one of Biden’s chief pollsters in 2020, Matt Barreto and Silas Lee will all be returning to the operation. Barreto and Lee focused on Latino voters and Black voters, respectively, during Biden's 2020 campaign and they are expected to reprise their roles.

David Binder, who specializes in focus groups and also worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign, will continue to conduct qualitative research.

Notably, John Anzalone, who with Lake was Biden’s lead pollster throughout the 2020 primaries and general election, will not be involved in the day-to-day operations. Instead, Murphy, who is a president at his polling firm, will take the lead and Anzalone will serve as an adviser, he confirmed in a text message.

The expansion of Biden's polling team comes at a complicated moment, given Biden’s stubbornly low approval ratings and pollsters' struggles to measure the electorate accurately in the past two presidential races.

Trump's campaign also announced that Tony Fabrizio, a top GOP pollster who had been with the former president during his 2016 and 2022 runs, will be moving from the MAGA Inc. super PAC to the campaign.

Garin and Pollock, in particular, led polling projects during the 2022 midterms that influenced Biden’s rhetoric around “MAGA Republicans.” The research, backed by the Center of American Progress Action Fund, called on Democrats to emphasize the most extreme elements of the GOP, while still distinguishing them from Republicans less beholden to Trump. For example, Biden has frequently noted at campaign events that “this is not your father’s Republican Party,” which was used as a digital ad during the midterms.

“Team Biden-Harris is building infrastructure to put us on a path to victory this fall, and bringing together a battle-tested, world-class data and polling operation is an essential step,” Mindy Myers, Biden’s senior adviser of opinion research who is overseeing the polling operation, said in a statement.