Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Kamala Harris\u2019 campaign is navigating internal tensions as a team of new senior strategists take hold of an operation largely staffed by people hired when Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee, according to six people, including aides familiar with the dynamics.<\/p>\n
Longtime Harris loyalists are also chafing at the continuing presence of some Biden aides known for disparaging the vice president, three of the people said.<\/p>\n
The unfolding friction is the result of an unprecedented overhaul of the Democratic ticket less than three months before the election, a daunting task that requires integrating two political worlds while at the same time selecting a vice presidential nominee and battling former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
And it requires negotiating a new structure at the highest levels of the organization. <\/p>\n
Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, the former Biden White House official and campaign chair, told Harris in a phone call that she needed specific assurances that some of the campaign\u2019s new power players \u2014 including David Plouffe, Barack Obama\u2019s former campaign manager \u2014 would not dilute her decision-making authority, two of the people told POLITICO. Those people, like the others who detailed the campaign\u2019s internal dynamics, were granted anonymity to convey private conversations.<\/p>\n
The call last week came after advisers in the vice president\u2019s inner circle pushed hard to hire Plouffe, whom Harris wanted on the campaign to provide counsel.<\/p>\n
POLITICO was first to report<\/a> the Harris team\u2019s interest in Plouffe, and first to report<\/a> his hiring more than a week later. After O\u2019Malley Dillon\u2019s call with the vice president, the Harris campaign marked Plouffe\u2019s arrival in a long list of staff additions with titles that one aide and a close ally said don\u2019t convey their significance or necessarily their proximity to Harris.<\/p>\n They described Plouffe\u2019s title \u2014 senior adviser for path to 270 and strategy \u2014 as severely downplayed given that those duties are typically the purview of a campaign manager.<\/p>\n And they noted with suspicion that Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a Harris alum from 2020 who went on to hold key positions in the White House and Biden sphere, was assigned the new specific task of focusing on Sun Belt states of the American West as well as Latino voters, considering Harris\u2019 increased competitiveness in those states and her depth of experience. They viewed it as a demotion that further diffuses her overall power.<\/p>\n A senior Harris official pushed back on those characterizations. The official stressed that Chavez Rodriguez\u2019s new duties were being added to her current job and that the incoming senior advisers, including Plouffe, all have a defined portfolio. In his case, it\u2019s to closely collaborate with O\u2019Malley Dillon and others to execute the campaign\u2019s state-by-state strategy \u2014 in addition to advising Harris.<\/p>\n Others brought in include the veteran strategist Stephanie Cutter, as senior adviser on message and strategy; Mitch Stewart, senior adviser for battleground states and Jen Palmieri, senior adviser for the second gentleman Doug Emhoff.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no doubt when you have 2,000 people and you are changing who is at the top of the ticket that it\u2019s going to take a minute to make sure that everyone is seated well, and we still have some work to do on that,\u201d O\u2019Malley Dillon said in an interview. \u201cBut I think, ultimately, when you look at what this campaign has accomplished in such a short amount of time, and how people went from working with the president on the top of the ticket to flipping immediately to the vice president on the top of the ticket, it does show at its core really strong support for the vice president and strong collaboration.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Malley Dillon maintained her influence over the organizational chart. As did other Biden originals, with all of the department heads keeping their leadership roles. But some Biden staffers who had worked on Harris\u2019 portfolio before have seen their jobs change and standing diminish just as the early warning signs of disunity began to emanate from the Wilmington, Delaware headquarters.<\/p>\n All of this comes as a campaign built to think and speak in the voice of Biden had to sharply adjust to taking its cues from Harris, its new standard-bearer. That\u2019s created staff-level factions of Biden loyalists, including some who spent years privately criticizing Harris\u2019 political skills and instincts, and her own team, whom she\u2019s worked to integrate.<\/p>\n At the same time, Harris\u2019 top advisers have made clear any changes would be \u201cadditive,\u201d and those leaving the campaign would be doing so voluntarily. In other words, aides who spent years working for Biden would retain their titles, and, in some cases, their workloads.<\/p>\n Sheila Nix, the senior adviser and chief of staff to Harris, issued a statement in which she contrasted the campaign\u2019s progress with what\u2019s happening with Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a team that within a few short weeks has changed candidates, added a running mate, seen hundreds of millions of dollars pour in fueled by a historic outpouring of support from millions of voters, and crisscrossed the country talking to voters \u2014 all while the other guy has grown increasingly unhinged and dangerous from his perch on Mar-a-Lago,\u201d Nix said. \u201cThe story here is what we’ve been able to do in a remarkably short amount of time to build a winning campaign \u2014 full stop.\u201d<\/p>\n Anxiety inside the campaign could still dissipate over the three-month sprint to November, but aides also fear they could grow in scope and significance and lead to trouble down the chain of command. Harris built a chaotic operation<\/a> in her 2020 presidential primary campaign that she allowed to fester, causing bottlenecks and radiating dysfunction across her organization. In the first two years of her vice presidency, she also saw several staff departures<\/a> and internal fissures that reinforced the idea she couldn\u2019t properly assemble and lead a harmonious team. But Harris and her staff have worked hard to overcome all the old dramas and the curtailed 2024 campaign is the latest test of whether she could keep it up.<\/p>\n A handful of people in Harris\u2019 circle told POLITICO they worry that the unfolding tension among campaign staffers will splash back on the vice president, and argue that it\u2019s unfortunate and unfair given the strides she\u2019s made in recent years to build a cohesive and loyal unit.<\/p>\n But some Harris loyalists have picked up on former Biden aides grumbling under their breath about now having to work for her. And there\u2019s considerable ire directed at top digital strategist Rob Flaherty, whose title includes deputy campaign manager.<\/p>\n Flaherty and collaborators stumbled when making an early take of a launch video for Harris based around the theme of \u201cFreedom,\u201d according to one person involved in the process. The person said the earlier version featured shots with primarily Black women in the background, which threatened to typecast Harris as having a narrower appeal rather than demonstrating her ability to unite voters from across communities.<\/p>\n The original video had to be outsourced via the Democratic National Committee, which leaned on an outside creative team to remake it.<\/p>\n A second person who worked on the video explained Flaherty was one of several editors for the spot that was completed on a compressed timeline and ultimately heralded as a major success. The campaign fielded the request for comment about Flaherty.<\/p>\n In a statement, Shelby Cole, the DNC\u2019s mobilization officer and a former digital director for Harris, said staffers at every level \u201chave put everything they can into this campaign,\u201d adding that the resulting public support for the new ticket is \u201ca reflection of the team I\u2019m so proud to be a part of.\u201d <\/p>\n And O\u2019Malley Dillon credited Flaherty with having a crucial role in transitioning the campaign when Harris took control, including overhauling the website and putting out a torrent of new content. She acknowledged the campaign includes former 2020 rivals, but said many of the same people have been working shoulder to shoulder for at least a year now.<\/p>\n Yet the raw emotions from the swift change-over still linger. Another Harris aide pointed to the digital operation\u2019s role in the Biden campaign \u2014 in the aftermath of his disastrous debate on June 27 \u2014 that included a fundraising pitch that argued switching to another candidate, including Harris, would make Democrats \u201cless likely to win<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The Harris aide said they had also observed longtime Biden-turned-Harris spokesperson TJ Ducklo bad-mouthing Harris.<\/p>\n Harris Communications Director Michael Tyler, Ducklo\u2019s boss on the campaign, said nobody is speaking ill of their nominee. \u201cNope,\u201d he said, \u201cnot happening.\u201d<\/p>\n