Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced on Thursday that he had hired Jennifer O’Malley Dillon as his new campaign manager, elevating a veteran Democratic strategist as he tries to scale up his limited organization and pivot toward President Trump and the general election.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon, 43, managed former Representative Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign last year and before that was a top aide on former President Barack Obama’s re-election team.
“She will be a tremendous asset to a campaign that is only growing and getting stronger as we prepare to take the fight to Donald Trump this fall,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.
His decision to bring on a new campaign manager in what could be the last days before he claims the Democratic nomination was not, however, merely a step toward expanding his team.
Presidential campaigns always grow as they transition from the primary to the fall election, which Mr. Biden is plainly doing after building a near-insurmountable delegate lead against Senator Bernie Sanders. But installing Ms. O’Malley Dillon amounted to a recognition by Mr. Biden that he must make major changes to better position himself for a race against Mr. Trump, who has spent months stockpiling cash and building his re-election machinery.
The choice of Ms. O’Malley Dillon, who remains close to Mr. Obama’s inner circle, also serves as a signal to Democratic donors and elected officials that Mr. Biden is revamping an operation that, until his Super Tuesday success, had been underfunded and lightly staffed.
Mr. Biden enjoyed a sudden reversal of fortune in South Carolina last month that has extended into March, but he was unable to build the sort of expansive organization enjoyed by most presidential front-runners. He had no staff members on the ground in many of the Super Tuesday states he won.
Well before that, though, his organization prompted considerable grumbling from longtime Democratic officials, in part because it was not always responsive and in part because it was, like all of Mr. Biden’s past campaigns, a multi-headed hydra consisting of advisers old and new.
Even on the day of the vote in South Carolina, which would turn his campaign around, Mr. Biden’s most prized supporter said he desperately needed to make changes.
“I’m not going to sit idly by and watch people mishandle this campaign,” said Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement helped propel Mr. Biden to victory there.
By hiring Ms. O’Malley Dillon now, Mr. Biden is effectively trying to catch his organization up to his success and status as the Democratic front-runner.
And the former vice president still has considerable work to do to unify his party, which is deeply divided along generational and ideological lines. The youngest and most liberal voters supported Mr. Sanders in this week’s primaries, exit polls showed, even as Mr. Biden enjoyed commanding victories overall.
Before she can fully turn to taking on Mr. Trump, Ms. O’Malley Dillon first must work to mollify Mr. Sanders and, in what may be an even greater challenge, his die-hard supporters.
She first joined Mr. Biden’s campaign in a volunteer capacity earlier this year, helping his team in Nevada, where he finished second after back-to-back disastrous showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Before she managed Mr. O’Rourke’s campaign, which ended in November, Ms. O’Malley Dillon worked on both of Mr. Obama’s presidential bids and did a stint as the executive director of the Democratic National Committee. A Massachusetts native, she also worked on a series of state and local campaigns before moving to Washington, where she is a partner in the public relations consultancy Precision Strategies.
Her arrival at Mr. Biden’s Philadelphia headquarters could assuage a number of Democrats, including Mr. Obama and his acolytes, who have long been uneasy about the former vice president’s operation. In addition to her own connection to the president, Ms. O’Malley Dillon’s husband, Patrick Dillon, also worked in the Obama White House.
Ms. O’Malley Dillon’s hiring was immediately greeted with enthusiasm by a number of Democrats. “I will no doubt be one of a chorus to say this, but absolutely excellent move by Joe Biden,” said Todd Schulte, a progressive advocacy leader and campaign veteran.
Mr. Biden already shook up his campaign last month, installing Anita Dunn, a longtime adviser, as his chief strategist. She is expected to remain in that role.
Greg Schultz, the original campaign manager, clashed with some in Mr. Biden’s orbit but is well-liked by a number of colleagues. Some of his admirers pointed out that, for all the criticism the campaign has received, Mr. Biden is now on the doorstep of the Democratic nomination after the campaign played out as Mr. Schultz had predicted.
For months, he assured Democrats that even if Mr. Biden were to struggle in heavily white Iowa and New Hampshire, which voted first this year, he would recover in more diverse Nevada and South Carolina and be catapulted into Super Tuesday.
Mr. Schultz was planning to stay on the campaign to work on “organizational planning for the general election,” according to Mr. Biden’s statement.
That task, said Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, “is an enormous undertaking” and suits Mr. Schultz, who is close to a number of national and state party officials. “Greg comes with the deep trust of the vice president and long experience building state operations,” Mr. Mook said.