President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden touched down in Los Angeles on a gray and windy Saturday afternoon to engage in a time-honored campaign tradition: courting celebrities in the hopes of gaining the support of their fans.
Air Force One touched down at LAX at 3:25 p.m. on Saturday, ahead of schedule, after departing from Philadelphia hours earlier. Biden headed for the airport Saturday morning after speaking to supporters at his campaign headquarters in Delaware. On Friday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base to witness the return of three American service members killed in last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan.
During their brief, less than 24-hour L.A. trip, the Bidens planned to meet with Black leaders in the entertainment industry to talk about the important role they can play in the upcoming election, Deadline reported Friday, as well as other campaign-related stops in the Southland.
The President was greeted by Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Hawthorne. He paused to snap a selfie with Waters’ sister, Karen Waters, and spent about five minutes chatting with Padilla’s 9-year-old son, Diego, before boarding the M1 helicopter and departing for Santa Monica airport around 3:45 p.m.
The First Lady joined the motorcade and headed to her own event.
“I’d say its time for the election and all the campaigning to really ramp up,” said Scott Donaldson, a Biden supporter flying to Atlanta who saw the president touch down.
There were no protesters on the tarmac. However, reporters travelling with the president’s motorcade from Santa Monica Airport to a campaign meeting in Bel Air observed at list six vehicles with large Palestinian flags. Some passengers were hanging out the windows to wave them as the motorcade drove by, according to pool reports.
While the Bidens’ visit takes advantage of the even greater-than-normal concentration of entertainers and music’s behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in town for the Grammys, the couple did not plan to attend the ceremony as they depart for a campaign event in Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon.
“Getting entertainment surrogates is a long held tactic Democrats use in presidential campaigns,” said veteran democratic strategist Michael Trujillo. “And, the base of the Democratic Party is African American voters, so we need the base to turn out to make sure Biden gets reelected.”
The Biden reelection campaign is likely extra eager to tap into celebrities’ star power — and wallets — as the recent WGA and SAG-AFRA strikes prevented industry leaders from organizing political fundraisers for many months, he added.
“L.A. is a longtime ATM for presidential candidates,” said Trujillo. “Because of the strikes they (the Bidens) are probably not where they would like to be at in terms of engaging the Hollywood and entertainment types, but they’re actively giving them face time and recruiting them and getting them excited about Joe Biden’s reelection.”
Celebrities hold huge sway over American voters, research indicates.
A brief Instagram post by Taylor Swift, for example, led to 35,000 new voter registrations in September 2023. The pop sensation has 279 million Instagram followers and endorsed Biden in the 2020 election. A 2024 endorsement would be powerful for the President.
But Democrats shouldn’t be alarmed that she hasn’t come out swinging, or singing, for Biden just yet, Trujillo said.
“Between now and November, you’re going to have the dog days of summer and traditionally, once Labor Day comes around, that’s when folks are paying attention to politics,” he said. “Then, I think there’ll be no shortage of celebrities, from the Taylor Swifts to the Tyler Perrys, supporting President Biden.”
Saturday’s trip marked the President’s first visit to the City of the Angels since his three-day fundraising frenzy in December. Former President Donald Trump last set foot in the Southland in August 2023 when he attended the California GOP’s convention in Anaheim.
Biden’s Saturday stop also coincided with the first official Democratic primary day of 2024.
As expected, the president swept Southern Carolina’s primary on Saturday afternoon, defeating longshot candidates such as Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips and author Marianne Williamson. The campaign used the primary to test-drive efforts to mobilize Black voters, who make up over a quarter of Southern Carolina’s population and are central to Biden’s strategy for victory in November.
Though the nominations are far from official, pollsters project a razor-thin, combative rematch between Biden and Trump in November.
GOP frontrunner Trump, who leads former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley by a wide margin in the polls, faces a crossroads moment in the nation’s highest court this week.
A case with the potential to derail Trump’s drive to return to the White House will swing the electoral spotlight on the Supreme Court starting Thursday.
However, the Supreme Court’s ongoing deliberations over whether the former president engaged in insurrection, has the potential to put a stop to his candidacy.
Meanwhile, at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in Las Vegas on Friday, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel urged the party to unite around the goal of regaining the White House, AP reported.
“We Republicans will stick together, as united as the union our party long ago fought to preserve,” McDaniel said, quoting Ronald Reagan, according to people who were in the room and disclosed her remarks on condition of anonymity to discuss a private gathering. “We’ll have our battles ahead of us, but they’re good battles, and they’re worth fighting for.”
The swing state of Nevada may prove pivotal in the November election. At Sunday’s campaign event in the Historic Westside of Las Vegas, the President will speak directly to voters about the stakes of this election.
The Associated Press, New York Times and reporter John Orona and photographer Brittany Murray contributed to this report.
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