Former Vice President Joe Biden is already assembling a transition team with an eye on the White House, NBC News reports.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, said during a virtual donor event that the team has already begun sounding out Cabinet selections and did not rule out announcing some of them before the election.
“I promise you that has already begun,” he said, adding that it “sounds presumptuous.”
“I don’t want it to sound like that, but it has to happen and that’s why the transition team is already being put together,” he said.
“I have had literally several hundred serious, serious players who have been held positions in every department in the federal government who have said, including some Republicans, who have said if you win, I want to come back. I’m ready to serve,” he added.
Biden won’t name names yet:
Biden did not discuss who is on the team or who they are vetting but vowed that they were all “first-rate” people.
“One advantage of being around a long time is you get to know an awful lot of people. In the private sector, in the public sector, people who are committed — first and foremost — are thoroughly honorable,” he said.
Race remains close:
Biden leads Trump by about 4-5% in recent polls, roughly the same level that Hillary Clinton saw in 2016.
New York Times data guru Nate Cohn warned that Biden’s lead “isn’t as solid as it looks.”
“The election will be decided by voters in the battleground states, not registered voters nationwide, and there the story is not nearly so clear or rosy for Mr. Biden,” he explained, noting that Biden’s standing was relatively weak among key demographics.
“Trump appears to retain his relative advantage in the disproportionately white working-class battleground states that decided the 2016 presidential election,” he wrote. “Mr. Biden leads in polls of registered voters in these states, but by a narrower margin than he leads nationwide. It raises the possibility that Democrats could win the most votes and lose the White House for the third time in six presidential elections.”
