Michael Donilon served as senior advisor to President Joe Biden, working on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues and acting as one of President Biden’s primary speechwriters. Donilon has worked for Biden since 1981 and has been involved in seven presidential campaigns, including for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, in addition to Biden. He also played a role in more than 30 winning U.S. Senate and gubernatorial campaigns. The Harvard Political Review sat down with Donilon to discuss political messaging in the 21st century, Biden’s campaigns, and the evolving trajectory of the Democratic Party.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Harvard Political Review: Having worked on multiple presidential campaigns across different political eras, how has the art of political messaging evolved, particularly in the era of social media and hyper-partisanship?
Michael Donilon: In some ways, it’s a lot harder because the landscape is a lot more complicated in terms of where people get the information and news they follow. There’s no longer the ability to reach people through any single platform. There’s been a substantial increase in misinformation and its ability to crowd out more truthful information. In other ways, the basic rules of political messaging are still pretty much the same. Candidates still need to have some clear, concise message that they convey with conviction. Politics is still about someone telling a story about where the country is, where you want to go, and what you’re raising concerns about.
HPR: You played a critical role in crafting the message for Biden’s 2020 victory. What lessons did the campaign learn about engaging with disaffected voters who may have felt left behind by traditional Democratic messaging?
MD: We embraced a theme that reached a lot of people who didn’t feel engaged or were left out. I think people agreed with us that, at the time, some of our core beliefs were being put to the test. Our message was about defending American ideals, defending what we stand for, what we believe, and who’s part of that story. Of course, every campaign seeks out new ways to engage people, so our investments in social media platforms, digital advertising, and creating peer-to-peer groups were all a big part of 2020 and 2024. Another thing unusual about 2020 was that we were operating in COVID-19. We couldn’t bring people together in traditional ways, we couldn’t hold big rallies. Almost all the campaigning was done remotely.
HPR: In the lead-up to the 2024 election, what were the pivotal factors that influenced President Biden’s decision to initially seek re-election, and how did the campaign plan to address concerns regarding his age and health?
MD: It was, first and foremost, a decision that President Biden made. He’d taken over during a moment of crisis in the country, and he had helped to put it in the right direction. I think he felt that he made significant achievements and merited a second term.
He believed in strengthening and building NATO, in job creation, and in combating inflation. He had a vision of unfinished work. There were parts of his vision that had not been realized. For example, early on, he had gotten a substantial child tax credit that had expired, and he couldn’t convince Congress to extend it. He really believed that an important part of the next four years would be to make childcare more affordable. Another issue to address was an unfair tax code where he felt that many of those at the top of the income weren’t paying a fair share. The final thing was that he believed he was the best person to beat Donald Trump. He’s now the only one to have ever beaten Trump. He felt he had a vision that was unfulfilled, and he wanted to keep moving in that direction.
On the topic of his age, I thought the best answer was going to be performance. I saw him every day. If you watched his farewell address, I think he had as clear and cogent an assessment of where the country is and the threats of the country as anyone’s ever given. It was sort of in the vein of what Eisenhower did when he left. I always thought it was interesting that on the morning that he got out [of the presidential election], he had finalized one of the most complicated prison release deals that’s ever been done. It was kind of bizarre that, on the one hand, there was this narrative that he was too old for the job when that very day, he was doing something that very few presidents have ever done.
I remember I had gone to him with the release that he was dropping out of the race. I remember him saying, “I just have to finish this [prison release] up.” He went into another room; that’s not easy. Every day, I kept seeing him do the job. I still think he’s the best person to be president today.
HPR: Having advised three Democratic presidents, how do you see the Democratic Party’s ideological trajectory shifting over the next decade? What forces are shaping its future?
MD: The party ought to step back and have some perspective. Joe Biden received more votes than anybody in history. He got more votes in 2020 than Trump did in 2024. We took back the Senate. The 2022 midterm election was very competitive, more so than most.
We have to be more prepared to fight for what we believe and to make it clear. For example, DEI, which I see as expanding the talent pool, widening it to get more excellence, not less. But we’re not really making that case. We’re just letting the other side say, “DEI is a matter of getting unqualified people when you hire,” and that’s not true.
On immigration, we can acknowledge that reforms need to be made and changes need to be made, and greater border security is important, that’s all true. But immigration has been an important source of vitality in the country, an important source of economic strength. In the last five or six months of Biden’s presidency, there were fewer cross-border crossings than during any interval when Trump was president. I think a lot of it is about us taking a hard look at what we believe is a party and if we’re willing to fight for it. The party at the moment feels a little unstable, it needs to solidify and get behind what it believes.
HPR: What do you see as the most significant long-term threats to the Democratic Party’s electoral success, and what steps should it take to address them?
MD: We’re in the middle of a big threat right now. There’s a real imbalance in the news and information flow of the country. Conservatives have Fox and now X, while Democrats have not found an effective conduit to that. That needs to change. We need to have a bigger voice. There are many issues with our news environment, everything from accuracy, the information that people are getting, to just the share of who gets a voice in the conversation. That’s a big, complicated problem.
