Vice President Kamala Harris, who formally won enough delegates to secure the Democratic Party nomination on Friday, is remaking a campaign hierarchy originally built to elect President Biden by adding several new advisers to the top ranks of her staff, including David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s first presidential run.
The changes, which come with fewer than 100 days until Election Day, provide an injection of talent and experience to a Wilmington, Del., operation that is flush with cash after her campaign announced raising a record-setting $310 million in July — more than double the sum raised by former President Donald J. Trump.
The hirings and promotions continue a whirlwind period for Ms. Harris, who is expected to meet in person with prospective candidates to be her running mate this weekend. The list is said to have narrowed to a half-dozen and the accelerated vetting process, conducted by an outside law firm, is now complete. Her campaign has suggested it will unveil her running mate by Tuesday evening, when the new ticket will hold a rally in Philadelphia to kick off a five-day battleground state tour.
Many of the other new additions to Ms. Harris’s team are veterans of the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns.
Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager in 2012, will now be a senior adviser for message and strategy. Mitch Stewart, Mr. Obama’s 2012 battleground states director, will be a senior adviser for the battleground states this year. Jennifer Palmieri, a former Obama and Clinton communications director, will be a senior adviser to Ms. Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff.
The vice president has also elevated political aides such as Brian Fallon and Megan Jones, who worked for her smaller team on the Biden campaign.
The new Harris aides will all report to Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign chair who took over Mr. Biden’s campaign in February and who has been the functional leader of the Harris campaign since Mr. Biden dropped out of the race.Ms. Harris announced last week that she had asked Ms. O’Malley Dillon to remain in charge of her campaign.
“We’re thrilled to expand her team with these battle-tested leaders that know her and know how to win close elections,” Ms. O’Malley Dillon said in a statement. Politico was first to report the news that Mr. Plouffe would be joining the Harris campaign.
Sheila Nix, a senior adviser to the Harris campaign and chief of staff to Ms. Harris, added, “These seasoned and respected leaders are a part of Vice President Harris’s steadfast commitment to grow a team that will ensure we do everything possible to win.”
Some new additions had been widely expected since Ms. Harris replaced Mr. Biden at the top of the ticket. The idea of Mr. Plouffe joining, for instance, had been discussed almost since the moment Ms. Harris entered the race. The reinforcements show that while Ms. Harris is keeping virtually the entire senior team that Mr. Biden had assembled in Wilmington, she wants to supplement it with a raft of fresh faces and voices, many of whom worked for Mr. Obama.
David Axelrod, the former top Obama strategist, hailed them as “an All-Star team” on X, joking, “Believe me, I know. I’ve been blessed to work closely with all them!”
In a virtual roll call on Friday, Ms. Harris formally won enough delegates for the party’s nomination less than three weeks after she entered the race. She spoke by phone to the virtual meeting, saying she was “honored” and excited for the convention later this month in Chicago.
“We’re going to get this done,” Ms. Harris said. “And, as your future president, I know we are up to this fight.”
Mr. Plouffe is expected to fill the void left by some of Mr. Biden’s advisers, such as Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn, who are not expected to be as involved now. Ms. Dunn is joining the pro-Harris super PAC Future Forward.
The lead pollster for the Harris campaign will now be David Binder, a pollster based in San Francisco who has worked with Ms. Harris for two decades. He will oversee the campaign’s existing team of pollsters, who funneled their findings while Mr. Biden was the candidate through Mr. Donilon, the president’s longtime aide. Also joining the polling team is Terrance Woodbury.
The ad firm GMMB, where the prominent Democratic ad maker Jim Margolis is a partner, will build out her media team. Mr. Margolis worked on Ms. Harris’s 2020 campaign, as well.
Quentin Fulks, who served as Mr. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, will now oversee that paid media program.
The campaign also announced that Liz Allen, a former top State Department official, would serve as the chief of staff to Ms. Harris’s running mate, similar to the role she held for Ms. Harris in 2020.
Brian Nelson, a Treasury Department official who worked for Ms. Harris when she was the attorney general of California, will be the campaign’s senior adviser for policy.
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