Kamala Harris‘campaign is grappling with internal tensions as a team of new senior strategists takes charge of an operation largely staffed by people hired when Joe Biden was the Democratic candidate, according to six people, including aides familiar with the dynamics.
Three sources say Harris supporters who have long been loyal to Congress are also irritated by the continued presence of some Biden advisers known for their disdain for the vice president.
The tension is the result of an unprecedented overhaul of the Democratic nomination slate less than three months before the election. It’s a difficult task that requires weaving together two political worlds, choosing a vice presidential nominee and fighting a battle against former President Donald Trump.
And it requires negotiating a new structure at the highest levels of the organization.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, the former White House official and Biden campaign manager, told Harris in a phone call that she needed specific assurances that some of the campaign’s new powers — including David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager — wouldn’t dilute her decision-making authority, two of the people told POLITICO. Those people, like others who described the campaign’s internal dynamics, were granted anonymity to speak privately.
Last week’s call came after advisers in the vice president’s inner circle pushed hard for the appointment of Plouffe, whom Harris wanted on the campaign trail to serve as an adviser.
POLITICO was first to report the Harris team’s interest in Plouffe, and first to report his appointment more than a week later. After O’Malley Dillon’s call with the vice president, the 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 proximity to Harris.
They described Plouffe’s title – senior adviser on path to 270 and strategy – as seriously underplayed, as such tasks are typically the domain of a campaign manager.
And they noted with suspicion that campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a 2020 Harris alumnus who went on to hold key positions in the White House and the Biden sphere, was given the new specific task of targeting Sun Belt states in the American West and Latino voters, given Harris’s increased competitiveness in those states and her deep experience. They saw it as a demotion that further dispersed her overall power.
A senior Harris official pushed back against those characterizations. The official stressed that Chavez Rodriguez’s new duties were added to her current job and that the incoming senior advisers, including Plouffe, all have defined portfolios. In his case, that’s to work closely with O’Malley Dillon and others to execute the campaign’s state-by-state strategy — in addition to advising Harris.
Others brought in include veteran strategist Stephanie Cutter, as senior adviser for message and strategy; Mitch Stewart, senior adviser for critical states; and Jen Palmieri, senior adviser to Second Lord Doug Emhoff.
“There’s no question that when you have 2,000 people and you change who’s at the top of the ticket, it takes a minute to make sure everyone’s in the right place, and we’ve got some work to do,” O’Malley Dillon said in an interview. “But I think ultimately when you look at what this campaign has accomplished in such a short period of time, and how people have gone from working with the president at the top of the ticket to immediately going to the vice president at the top of the ticket, it really shows, at its core, strong support for the vice president and strong cooperation.”
O’Malley Dillon retained her influence on the organization chart, as did other Biden originals, with all department heads retaining their leadership roles. But some Biden aides who had previously worked on Harris’s portfolio saw their jobs change and their standing diminished, just as the first warning signs of disunity were beginning to emerge from headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
It all comes as a campaign built to think and speak in Biden’s voice has had to radically adapt to take cues from Harris, its new standard-bearer. That’s created staff-level factions of Biden loyalists, including some who have spent years privately criticizing Harris’ political skills and instincts, and her own team, which she helped integrate.
At the same time, Harris’ top advisers have made clear that any changes would be “additive,” and that those leaving the campaign would do so voluntarily. In other words, aides who worked for Biden for years would keep their titles, and in some cases, their workloads.
Sheila Nix, Harris’s senior adviser and chief of staff, issued a statement comparing the campaign’s progress to what is happening under Trump.
“This is a team that, in a matter of 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 — all the while the other guy has grown increasingly distraught and dangerous from his perch 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.”
Fears within the campaign could dissipate during the three-month sprint to November, but aides also fear they could grow in size and significance and lead to problems in the hierarchy. Harris built a chaotic operation in her 2020 presidential primary campaign and let it fester, creating bottlenecks and dysfunction within her organization. Her first two years as vice president also saw staff departures and internal rifts that reinforced the perception that she could not properly assemble and lead a harmonious team. But Harris and her staff have worked hard to overcome the legacy dramas, and the truncated 2024 campaign is the latest test of whether she can sustain it.
A handful of people close to Harris told POLITICO they worry that the simmering tensions among campaign staff will reflect on the vice president, saying it’s unfortunate and unfair given the steps Harris has taken in recent years to build a cohesive and loyal unit.
But some Harris loyalists have picked up former Biden aides who are grumbling under their breath about now having to work for her. And there has been considerable anger directed at top digital strategist Rob Flaherty, whose title includes deputy campaign manager.
Flaherty and staff stumbled when they shot an early version of a launch video for Harris around the theme of “Freedom,” according to a person involved in the process. The person said the earlier version featured shots of mostly black women in the background, which threatened to characterize Harris as someone with narrow 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 brought in an outside creative team to recreate the video.
A second person who worked on the video explained that Flaherty was one of the editors for the spot, which was completed on a compressed timeline and ultimately heralded as a huge success. The campaign responded to a request for comment about Flaherty.
In a statement, Shelby Cole, the DNC’s mobilization officer and former digital director for Harris, said staff at every level “put everything they could into this campaign.” He added that the resulting public support for the new ticket “is a reflection of the team I’m so proud to be a part of.”
And O’Malley Dillon credited Flaherty for his pivotal role in the campaign’s transition once Harris took control, including revamping the website and releasing a flurry 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 now.
Still, the raw emotions of the rapid switch linger. Another Harris aide pointed to the role of the digital operation in Biden’s campaign — in the wake of his disastrous June 27 debate — which included a fundraising pitch arguing that switching to another candidate, including Harris, would make Democrats “less likely to win.”
According to Harris’ adviser, they had also seen TJ Ducklo, a Biden spokesman turned Harris, gossiping about Harris.
Harris Communications Director Michael Tyler, Ducklo’s campaign boss, said no one is badmouthing their nominee. “No,” he said, “that’s not happening.”
