Joseph R. Biden on Tuesday beefed up his campaign team by hiring two veteran operatives in Pennsylvania, a key 2020 battlefront against President Trump.
Mr. Biden, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, announced he had brought aboard Brendan McPhillips as state director in Pennsylvania and Sinceré Harris as a senior advisor in the state.
Mr. McPhillips previously served as Pete Buttigieg’s state director in Iowa, where he helped orchestrate the openly gay former mayor’s historic win in February’s Iowa Democratic Caucuses.
Ms. Harris has served as the executive director of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party since 2015 and is credited with racking up post-Trump election wins for the party, including reelecting Sen. Bob Casey and Gov. Tom Wolf.
Mr. Trump made Pennsylvania ground zero in the presidential race in 2016 when he put it in the Republican column for the first time in 28 years. The win sealed Mr. Trump’s bid break Democrats’ longtime grip on Rust Belt states, which delivered him to the White House.
Mr. Biden’s run for the Democratic nomination was built, in part, on his ties to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, and his camaraderie with the state’s working-class voters.
Team Biden also has staffed up in other battleground states, including Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
