Kamala Harris’ campaign faces internal tensions as a team of new senior strategists takes control of an operation largely made up of people hired when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee, according to six people, including aides familiar with the dynamics.
Longtime Harris supporters are also angered by the continued presence of some Biden aides known for belittling the vice president, three of the people said.
The unfolding friction is the result of an unprecedented review of the Democratic ticket less than three months before the election, a difficult task that requires the integration of two political worlds and, at the same time, the selection of a vice-presidential candidate. and the fight against former President Donald Trump.
And it requires negotiating a new structure at the highest levels of the organization.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, a former Biden White House official and campaign chair, told Harris in a phone call that she needed specific assurances that some of the campaign’s new power players — including David Plouffe, Biden’s former campaign manager Barack Obama – they wouldn’t dilute it. decision-making authority, two people told POLITICO. These people, like the others who detailed the internal dynamics of the campaign, were granted anonymity to broadcast private conversations.
The call last week came after advisers from the vice president’s inner circle pushed hard to hire Plouffe, who Harris wanted on the campaign to provide advice.
POLITICO was the first to report the Harris team’s interest in Plouffe and the first to report his hiring more than a week later. Following O’Malley Dillon’s call with the vice president, Harris’ campaign marked Plouffe’s arrival in a long list of staff additions with titles that an aide and a close ally said did not convey their significance or necessarily their closeness to Harris.
They described Plouffe’s title – senior advisor on road to 270 and strategy – as severely underrated, given that those roles are typically the purview of a campaign manager.
And they noted with suspicion that campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a 2020 Harris alum who has held senior roles in the White House and Biden sphere, has been given the specific new task of focusing on the western Sun Belt states as well. American. as Latino voters, considering Harris’ increased competitiveness in those states and her deep experience. They saw this as a demotion that further diffuses their overall power.
A senior Harris official rejected those characterizations. The official highlighted that Chávez Rodríguez’s new functions were being added to his current position and that the new senior advisors, including Plouffe, all have a defined portfolio. In his case, it’s collaborating closely with O’Malley Dillon and others to execute the campaign’s state-by-state strategy — in addition to advising Harris.
Other hires include veteran strategist Stephanie Cutter as senior advisor on messaging and strategy; Mitch Stewart, Senior Advisor for Swing States and Jen Palmieri, Senior Advisor to Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
“There’s no doubt that when you have 2,000 people and you’re changing who’s at the top of the list, it’s going to take a minute to make sure everyone’s sitting tight, and we still have some work to do on that,” O’Malley Dillon said in an interview . “But I think ultimately, when you look at what this campaign has accomplished in such a short amount of time and how people have gone from working with the president at the top of the ticket to immediately moving to the vice president at the top of the ticket, the The ticket shows, in essence, very strong support for the vice president and strong collaboration.”
O’Malley Dillon maintained his influence over the organizational chart. Just like other Biden originals, with all department heads retaining their leadership roles. But some Biden staffers who had previously worked in Harris’ portfolio saw their jobs change and their position diminish just as the first warning signs of disunity began to emanate from the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters.
All of this comes at a time when a campaign built to think and speak in Biden’s voice had to drastically adjust to follow the suggestions of Harris, his new standard-bearer. This has created factions of staffers loyal to Biden, including some who have spent years privately criticizing the political skills and instincts of Harris, and her own team, whom she worked to integrate.
At the same time, Harris’ top advisers made clear that any changes would be “additive” and that those leaving the campaign would do so voluntarily. In other words, aides who spent years working for Biden would keep their titles and, in some cases, their workloads.
Sheila Nix, Harris’ senior adviser and chief of staff, issued a statement in which she compared the campaign’s progress to what is happening with Trump.
“This is a team that in just a few weeks changed candidates, added a running mate, saw hundreds of millions of dollars coming in fueled by a historic outpouring of support from millions of voters, and crisscrossed the country talking to voters – all while the another guy has become increasingly unbalanced and dangerous since his position at Mar-a-Lago,” Nix said. “The story here is what we were able to do in a remarkably short period of time to build a winning campaign – period.”
Anxiety within the campaign may still dissipate over the three months until November, but advisers also fear it could increase in scope and importance and lead to problems up the chain of command. Harris built a chaotic operation into her 2020 presidential primary campaign, which she allowed to fester, causing bottlenecks and radiating dysfunction throughout her organization. In the first two years of her vice presidency, she also saw several staff departures and internal fissures that reinforced the idea that she would not be able to properly assemble and lead a harmonious team. But Harris and her team have worked hard to overcome all the old drama, and the scaled-back 2024 campaign is the latest test of whether she can continue.
Some in Harris’ circle told POLITICO they fear the growing tension among campaign staffers will spill over onto the vice president and argue it is unfortunate and unfair given the strides she has made in recent years to build a cohesive and loyal unit. .
But some Harris supporters noticed former Biden aides muttering under their breath about now having to work for her. And there is considerable ire directed at digital strategist Rob Flaherty, whose title includes deputy campaign manager.
Flaherty and collaborators stumbled while previewing a Harris release video based on the theme “Freedom,” according to a person involved in the process. The person said the previous version featured photos with mostly black women in the background, which threatened to pigeonhole Harris as having a narrower appeal rather than demonstrating her ability to unite voters from all communities.
The original video had to be outsourced to the Democratic National Committee, which enlisted an outside creative team to redo it.
A second person who worked on the video explained that Flaherty was one of several editors on the commercial that was completed on a compressed schedule and ultimately heralded as a huge success. The campaign responded to a request for comment on Flaherty.
Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Harris’ campaign, disputed the idea that the DNC had to intervene.
“Our team made an initial cut of a launch video, which needed to be updated when we obtained the rights to use Beyoncé’s ‘Freedom’. Any claim that the work “had to be outsourced” because the work wasn’t up to par is completely divorced from reality and fails to recognize that the same creative team that drove the first video is the one that created our powerful final launch video. .”
In a statement, Shelby Cole, DNC mobilization officer and Harris’ former digital director, said staff at all levels “put everything they could into this campaign,” adding that the resulting public support for the new ticket is “a reflection of the team I am very proud to be part of.”
And O’Malley Dillon credited Flaherty with playing a crucial role in transitioning the campaign as Harris took control, including revamping the website and releasing a torrent of new content. She acknowledged that the campaign includes former 2020 rivals, but said many of the same people have been working shoulder to shoulder for at least a year.
Yet the raw emotions of rapid change still persist. Another Harris aide pointed to the role of the digital operation in the Biden campaign — following their disastrous June 27 debate — which included a fundraising campaign that argued that switching to another candidate, including Harris, would make the Democrats “less likely to win.”
Harris’ aide said he also observed longtime Biden spokesman-turned-Harris TJ Ducklo badmouthing Harris.
Harris communications director Michael Tyler, Ducklo’s boss on the campaign, said no one is badmouthing his nominee. “No,” he said, “it won’t happen.”
This story originally appeared on Politico.com read the full story
