President Biden has announced everything, but he is running for re-election, but the main questions about the 2024 campaign remain unresolved: Who will manage it? Where will it be based? When will he finally make it official?

Advisers have long said he planned to wait until after March, when the first fundraising period of the year ends. That was an attempt to help manage expectations, as many donors who gave generously to Democratic causes during last fall’s election were looking for a break.

But an announcement isn’t forthcoming even now, aides say, and likely won’t come until after Biden returns from an anticipated trip to Ireland in mid-April.

Working on his own timeline could counter Biden’s low approval ratings and questions about his age, the 80-year-old would turn 86 before the end of a second term. It also means Biden won’t be rushed by pressure from former President Trump, who has already announced his 2024 campaign, or other top Republicans who may be in the race, including Florida’s governor. Ron DeSantis or former Vice President Mike Pence.

He has earned the luxury of making the timetable, said Brad Bannon, a Washington Democratic strategist. The longer he can keep this thing focused on his White House duties, and less on the campaign back and forth, the better it will be for him.

That said, Biden aides are aware that Trump has been indicted for his role in paying hush money to a porn actor, and they say Biden will try to time his announcement to a point where he won’t be sharing the political spotlight anymore with the man he defeated in the 2020 election.

Biden’s inner political circle is ready to start executing campaign strategy from day one and sees no objection to the president taking his time. Biden has no significant Democratic challenger for the nomination. The self-help guru and 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson is the only contender at this point in the primary race.

It is also up to Biden to decide where next year’s Democratic National Convention will be held between the three finalists Atlanta, Chicago and New York. But with the logistical foundations largely in place, there’s little pressure for that decision until the president is ready, organizers say.

Much of the re-election effort will be directed from the White House, where Biden’s top advisers are expected to remain. Still, the campaign manager and top staff will be responsible for raising huge sums of money, reaching millions of voters and advocating for Biden at American doors and online while still in the business of governing.

A top Biden adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a re-election campaign that has not yet been announced, noted that Biden’s bid for 2020 was a $1.7 billion operation and that the effort would be bigger this time around. are. The consultant said one key will be finding validators, or non-Washington voices who can spread the campaign’s message at a time when many people have lost faith in all things politics.

Aides and allies discuss how to build the right racing infrastructure for 2024. Conditions are different from 2020 for Biden, whose race then ran while the country was largely shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The political environment is also different as technological and cultural shifts continue to change the way people communicate. Biden’s advisers are preparing a new campaign model fit for the time to activate his base and identify and court the persuasive center, essentially a tailored communication strategy for each targeted voter.

Aba Blankson, the NAACP’s chief of marketing and communications, said her organization is nonpartisan but achieved success in mobilizing black voters in a significant portion of Biden’s base before last November’s election using similarly targeted political messaging. That included text messages, radio advertising and knocking on doors to promote peer-to-peer organization in areas that were able to host crucial races.

I think his timing is what his timing is,” said Bankson. “But for us, it’s an every year reality.

The choice of Biden’s campaign headquarters is limited to Philadelphia, the 2020 location, and Wilmington, Del., where his home is and where the president spends many weekends away from the White House. While Biden favors Delaware by all accounts, some top Democrats worry it will be difficult to recruit top campaign talent for Wilmington.

The Biden adviser downplayed the importance of immediately choosing between the two. And Biden waited until weeks after the start of his 2020 campaign to announce that he had settled in Philadelphia and committed to a major battlefield state.

A bigger challenge was fulfilling the position of campaign manager. Some would-be candidates see it as a thankless task as much of the decision-making is confined to the White House, though the adviser said whoever is ultimately elected will have a lot of leeway to lead 2024.

Jen OMalley Dillon, Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, is now White House Deputy Chief of Staff and plans to keep her job. Many potential candidates have expressed interest in the campaign manager position, but those shortlisted include Julie Chavez Rodriguez, director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and deputy campaign manager for Biden’s 2020 campaign, and Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

Quentin Fulks, campaign manager for Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock’s re-election victory last fall, has been mentioned.

Biden led the Democrats to a better-than-expected 2022 midterm performance by urging voters to reject extreme supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. So bringing in an outsider who ran successful Democratic campaigns last fall is a possibility. But party leaders acknowledge that getting into Biden’s famously tight-knit inner circle has been challenging at times.

An exception is OMalley Dillon, who came into Biden’s job in late 2020 after replacing former Texas Rep. Beto ORourkes had led to a failed presidential bid.

Trump has yet to name a campaign manager, despite announcing his candidacy months ago. But others are not waiting to hire staff.

Republican Nikki Haley, Trump’s UN ambassador and former governor of South Carolina, chose Betsy Ankney, executive director of Haley’s Stand for America political action committee, to lead her presidential campaign. The super-PAC linked to DeSantis brought former Trump aide Matt Wolking and strategist Jeff Roe, the architect of Texas Sen.’s presidential campaign. Ted Cruz in 2016 and Republican Glenn Youngkin’s winning campaign for Virginia governor in 2021.

Even with the unanswered questions about his campaign structure, the outline of Biden’s pitch is forming for voters.

From the State of the Union address in February to speeches for donors, the president has begun advocating that Americans should let him finish the job he started. He has also tried to frame the race as a choice between himself and MAGA Republicans who, he argues, will undermine the country’s core values.

Biden has traveled in recent months to promote what he sees as his administration’s key policy achievements, including a bipartisan public works package, and plans more of the same in the future. That could use him this year to test political messages that may best resonate in 2024, aides said.

He won’t win or lose reelection based on what happens in his campaign,” Bannon predicted. “He’s going to win it based on his performance as president and the performance of his opponent, whoever it is.