When the Hunter Biden laptop story emerged, for example, some Democrats — worried that it would be 2020’s version of the Hillary Clinton email story — suggested that the Biden campaign should forcefully denounce it. But the campaign’s testing found that most voters in its key groups couldn’t follow the complexities of the allegations, and that it wasn’t changing their opinion of Mr. Biden.
…the rest of the story (aka, the following paragraphs)
“We had running surveys so we could see in real-time how people were responding,” said Caitlin Mitchell, a digital adviser for the Biden campaign. “The two big metrics were: Are you aware of this? And many people had heard of it. The secondary category was: Are you concerned by it? And the clear answer was no.”
The campaign still responded to the reports, and Mr. Biden defended his son on the debate stage. But it stopped short of mounting a full-throated counter-messaging campaign.
Planned empathy and highly organized and professional “down to earth” internet media.
Smart.
Did no one in Trump’s campaign advise him that, especially during a pandemic, he had an empathy problem he needed to have technical professionals correct?