How Harris Is Still Building Her Team With 100 Days to Go

Just 45 minutes after President Biden announced on Sunday that he was stepping aside as the Democratic nominee, Team Kamala started to take shape.

Kate Conway, Biden’s creative director, dropped a message on the team’s Slack channel, “Please give a wave to this message if you’re online and available to do some design work right now. We are gearing up toward some quick pivots.”

Conway was now Kamala Harris’ creative director. Within three hours there was a new Harris for President Logo. In just over a day, her team rebuilt the Harris branding inventory, from print ads to website.

In her first interview since becoming Harris’ creative director (she was only appointed by Team Biden in March), Conway told Fast Company, “There’s really no overselling how difficult a task that is—the brand exists everywhere from yard signs and rally placards to the website, our social channels, and our ads.”

Most presidential nominees have months to build a campaign team. Kamala Harris has days.

The focus, till now, has been on Harris’ campaign chair, campaign manager, and growing speculation as to whom she might draft in to help with the political hand-to-hand combat. But any bid for president involves a huge campaign machinery, much of it out of sight. The speed that Harris has assumed the role of nominee is unprecedented, and one of her first decisions was to work with, and effectively inherit, most of the senior Biden campaign staff.

When she went to Biden’s campaign HQ in Wilmington on Monday she told staffers that she had asked Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, and campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, to stay on. Both readily accepted. O’Malley Dillon became the first woman to manage a winning Democratic presidential campaign in 2020. She was hailed then as having a masterful ability to steer a candidate to the winning line of 270 Electoral College votes.

She’ll need those skills more than ever. Her candidate starts behind in the polls and is having to build a campaign team on the move. As a longtime close ally, Bakari Sellers, said immediately after Biden stepped aside, “We’re building the plane while we’re flying it.” The room where Harris met with staff in Wilmington had been hastily redecorated with a California flag and new “Harris for President” signs. But a Biden-Harris logo still hung on one wall.

Creative director Conway revealed that the pivot from Biden to Harris was so swift that staff waited at the printers so that they could rush the “Harris for President” signs to the Wilmington event. Fast Company reported that, “They had to run them there while they were still wet to make it in time.”

Harris’ existing VP team had played a key role in helping her clear the runway of other would-be rivals within 48 hours. And raise $100m in the same time frame. The New York Times reported that, "The vice president had assembled her team so that the exact moment Mr. Biden formally quit, at 1:46 p.m.—one minute after the president had informed his own senior staff—they were ready to go."

Harris already had a small team of aides embedded within the Biden campaign team. The Washington Post reports that they will likely assume larger roles. “Sheila Nix, a longtime aide to first lady Jill Biden, serves as Harris’s chief of staff; Brian Fallon serves as her communications director; Megan Jones is a senior political adviser; and Sergio Gonzales is a senior adviser.”

The only downgrading has been of Biden’s long-term aide Mike Donilon, who is stepping back from his senior position to an unknown, lesser role.

In addition to seasoned political veterans and official staffers Team Kamala will expect to build momentum from celebrity supporters. Charlie XCX posting Kamala IS Brat)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://x.com/charli_xcx/status/1815182384066707861?ref_src=twsrc*5Etfw*7Ctwcamp*5Etweetembed*7Ctwterm*5E1815182384066707861*7Ctwgr*5E5f7d4eb178178f8a49a706316ab82f09488cbda6*7Ctwcon*5Es1_&ref_url=https*3A*2F*2Fwww.thedailybeast.com*2Fkamala-harris-stepdaughter-joins-khive-memes-after-gop-attacks-vp-as-childless__;JSUlJSUlJSUlJSUlJQ!!LsXw!TSijAcDHFuqA4RvbFy4JirHZ6ZgXk-9an-cLMCXKVnMHszVekwdgeZnBZkEUnOkcbQBiH_tjAjlnSs1ZRNeKOS4Ml2LuBITSe0XS$">Kamala IS Brat on X on Sunday night has already had an enormous impact. She may yet emerge as one of Team Kamala's official collaborators.

The following day Beyoncé’s team allowed Kamala to use her song “Freedom” as part of their campaign. By Thursday, when Harris debuted her first campaign ad, the Beyoncé song had framed the entire message and was incorporated throughout the video.

Expect more of these household names to appear over the coming days and weeks. They will likely have as much, and in some cases more, influence than the official team in terms of messaging and framing the candidate. Already George Clooney, Ariana Grande, Barbra Streisand, Olivia Rodrigo, Katy Perry and many more have endorsed Harris. Donald Trump has Hulk Hogan and Kid Rock in his corner.

But new additions are expected and, according to those close to the campaign, needed. Harris’ allies are trying to convince ex-Obama aide David Plouffe to join the team as chief strategist. Plouffe was Obama’s campaign manager for his 2008 presidential run and later served in the White House. He later joined Uber, for a time, and his close connections in Silicon valley might help temper growing enthusiasm among tech entrepreneurs for a Trump candidacy.

Another key addition the Harris team is keen to recruit is Jim Margolis. He is considered one of the leading ad-makers and media strategists in the Democratic party. He, like Plouffe, served in key roles in the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012. Politico reported that his talks are ongoing with the Harris team.

David Axelrod, yet another former key Obama aide, has urged the Harris team to quickly get their entire messaging team in place as both the Trump and Harris campaigns race to define the new Democratic nominee.

And, while Plouffe has not yet joined the team officially, it’s possible that his influence has already been felt. On Monday Plouffe appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to offer his advice on how Harris should frame the election match-up, “She’s a prosecutor. He’s a criminal.”

The first words Kamala spoke—after thanking staffers and President Joe Biden—in Wilmington for her first highly anticipated, televised appearance on Monday? “I was a courtroom prosecutor. I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”

I’m a prosecutor. He’s a felon.

Barely 24 hours after Biden had dropped out, the messaging wars had already begun.