Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina There is a small club of young, male politicians in America who President JOE BIDEN labels with what he calls “the highest compliment I can give him or anyone else”: They remind him of his son BEAU BIDEN, who died in 2015. Secretary of Transportation PETE BUTTIGIEG is in that club, for instance. And so is Congressman CONOR LAMB (D-PA) who is expected to announce a Senate run tomorrow in a crowded primary for one of the most contested Senate seats in 2022. “He reminds me of my Beau because with Beau and with Conor, it’s about the other guy,” Biden said in March 2018 when Lamb was running in a special election for Congress, which he won. Also like Beau, Lamb is a young, handsome, white, Irish Catholic lawyer who served in the military and attended the University of Pennsylvania. And like the Biden’s generally, he has prided himself on being a pro-labor Democrats who stands up to the left-wing of his party. The Biden connections trick down to Biden senior adviser MIKE DONILON who was also a consultant on Lamb’s campaigns in the 2018 special election, 2018 midterms and 2020. “I don't think there's any question that Lamb is a candidate in the Biden mold, the Biden tradition,” said strategist DAVID AXELROD. “I think that's one of the reasons Donilon was drawn to him because he has deep, deep roots in the working class tradition of the Democratic Party. I think a challenge for the Democratic Party runs the risk of becoming the sort of smarty pants party. And, you know, he's not that.” A Lamb Senate candidacy, however, could present some complications for Biden world, pitting—once more—a candidate in the president’s mold against a more progressive alternative. In this case, Lieutenant Governor JOHN FETTERMAN and State Rep. MALCOLM KENYATTA, have both already announced their bids for the seat being vacated by Republican PAT TOOMEY. Similar contests in New York’s mayoral election and Ohio’s 11th congressional district have depressed progressive-minded voters as more moderate candidates ERIC ADAMS and SHONTEL BROWN have won. “As you watch these primaries play out, candidates with an association with Biden or Biden-style politics are doing pretty well,” Axelrod noted. Lamb is betting that he can be the next in that trend. He got into a tussle with Rep. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ after the 2020 election, when she criticized Democrats for not being digitally engaged and spotlighted Lamp specifically for spending only “$2,000 on Facebook the week before the election” and losing. In fact, Lamb had won. He responded the next day by blasting left-wing Democrats over “defund the police” and banning fracking, calling them “false promises by the people that call for them.” On the left-wing “squad” members in the House, he told The New York Times that: “the fact is that they and others are advocating policies that are unworkable and extremely unpopular.” “I don't think she really knows much about my campaign at all, or about my district," he said of AOC. It’s yet to be seen if a candidate like Lamb can match Biden, Adams, or Brown’s appeal with Black voters, however. His Western Pennsylvania district is overwhelmingly white and on the opposite side of the state from populous Philadelphia where many Black voters are. Biden is not expected to get involved in the primary. The White House pointed to a statement from Deputy Chief of Staff JEN O’MALLEY DILLON last May when she said that “Historically, President Biden has rarely endorsed in Democratic primaries. That’s also the practice that most presidents have had, and it’s a safe bet that will continue.” The White House declined to make Donilon available for an interview. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you DANIEL CLUCHEY? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
