Gov. Shapiro, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan join Biden’s reelection campaign advisory board
The 50 Democrats is expected to be high-profile surrogates for the campaign, helping to fundraise and stump for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Four Pennsylvania Democrats are on the national advisory board for President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, U.S. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Brendan Boyle, and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta were all announced on Wednesday as members of the board, which will be chaired by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and also include New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.).
The 50 Democrats on the board are expected to be high-profile surrogates for the campaign, helping to fundraise and stump for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Pennsylvania’s four lawmakers were involved to different degrees in Biden’s 2020 campaign. Kenyatta and Boyle were early supporters of Biden’s campaign and active surrogates for him. They were named among the 17 “rising stars” the party featured at the virtual Democratic National Convention that year. Boyle, who shares Biden’s Irish heritage, recently traveled to Ireland with the president.
Houlahan, who represents a purple district in Chester County, was quick to back Biden in 2020. Biden campaigned for her in 2018, when she became the first Democrat to represent Chester County in 130 years, after the district was redrawn to include areas with more Democratic voters. Biden also rallied for Shapiro at the Liacouras Center at Temple University in the final days before the 2022 midterms.
Biden announced his highly anticipated reelection campaign last month in a video focused on protecting democracy from “MAGA extremists” and continuing on the work of his first term.
His path to reelection will again run squarely through Pennsylvania, considered one of a handful of toss-up states. As Biden faces questions about his age and grapples with slumping approval ratings, he’ll look to surrogates in the state to boost his image here. With a divided Congress likely to stymie his agenda, Biden will run on the legislative accomplishments already behind him, which include investments in infrastructure funding projects around Pennsylvania.
Expect to see some of the surrogates named Wednesday at a lot of ribbon cuttings around Pennsylvania, plugging the president on the road to the 2024 election.