Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden is running an all-digital campaign in Michigan, a decision that is making some Democrats nervous about his chances in the battleground state
“I can’t even find a sign,” retired Chrysler employee Don Sabbe told Time magazine.
"I'm looking for one of those storefronts. I’m looking for a campaign office for Biden. And I’m not finding one.”
There are no dedicated Biden campaign field offices in Sabbe's county, and it is not clear if there are any in the whole state, because the campaign has moved its field organizing efforts online.
Further, Biden's campaign in Michigan is refusing to confirm the location of any field offices despite requests and has not confirmed locations for handing out signs.
It also refused to say how many of the Michigan staff were actually located in the state, but instead, the field operation is being run through the Michigan Democratic Party’s One Campaign, which is only campaigning online.
Locals say there are more Biden signs than there were for Hillary Clinton, but not enough to make it appear that he's actively campaigning in the crucial swing state. Even when Biden has visited, he's only attracted a handful of supporters because his campaign did not disclose the event's location in advance, even to the Democrat county chair because it did not want to attract a crowd that could violate state guidelines on gathering.
Biden's team, though, says the campaign may be the largest program in state history. It also says it reached out to 500,000 texts to Michigan voters after the convention, but it has done away with traditional campaigning and doesn't have volunteers knocking on doors and distributing literature.
“We don’t see the presence,” says Lori Goldman, the founder of Fems for Dems, a grassroots political action group with nearly 9,000 members in Michigan, told Time. "They should have people who are like Jehovah’s Witnesses...there needs to be someone out there Biden-izing. People don’t even know where to volunteer for Biden.”