Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has dispatched several experienced political operatives to troubleshoot battleground states in recent weeks amid Democratic concerns about the presidential election remaining deadlocked in key battleground states. This was revealed by six people familiar with the surge in election results.
The group of senior advisers included Paulette Aniskoff, the former director of the White House Office of Public Engagement under then-President Barack Obama, who helped manage the nation, which officials considered lackluster. Sent to Pennsylvania two weeks ago to strengthen. One of the sources said the state is a “problem place” for the Harris campaign.
Harris’ campaign against former President Donald Trump has settled into a trench war in seven states. An average of recent polls in these states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada) by RealClearPolitics has both candidates leading by more than 1 point.
“Everyone is very nervous, both our campaign and the Trump campaign,” said one person familiar with the surge in states, speaking on condition of anonymity to speak candidly.
Eric Hyers, who managed Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s winning campaign and led the Michigan operation for Joe Biden in 2020, was charged with serving as a lawyer in North Carolina.
Michael Hare, a longtime top adviser to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Nick Lasod, a senior political and coalition adviser to the Harris campaign, are backing Georgia.
Marlon Marshall, a veteran of the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns, is tasked with monitoring Nevada and Arizona.
Chris Wyant, a Midwesterner who also worked on these presidential campaigns, is supporting Harris in Michigan.
These advisers are heavyweights who have held some of the highest-level positions in previous presidential campaigns. But Harris’ campaign insists the additions are not part of any reforms.
“In every campaign I’ve been a part of, there are a lot of people at the end who add their help and expertise to each state,” Dan Kaninen, the Harris campaign’s battleground director, said in an interview. “Sometimes you have someone who is a former ambassador and collates the packets (of vote-getting operations). Sometimes you have someone who is a serious operative who lends you a few weeks at the end to shore up your operation and everything in between. Masu.”
“As you can imagine, there’s a lot of help coming in late,” Kaninen said. “That’s great, because we really need the ability to make sure we do everything we need to do in the battleground states.”
Democratic presidential campaigns have used such senior advisers to oversee and troubleshoot specific states in past elections. In 2016, the Clinton campaign dubbed a group of high-level operatives the “traveling Uber.”
