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Kamala Harris continues to surge in the polls but tensions are brewing behind the scenes as several factions within her campaign battle for control.
Harris has retained most of President Joe Biden’s team but has also brought on officials loyal to her, leading to a large staff with different groups who are at times out of step with each other, Axios reported.
While Biden’s campaign consisted of a small number of longtime advisors and aides making the significant decisions, Harris’s campaign has multiple groups vying for influence. In addition to her own staff and many Biden officials, Harris has also engaged top aides from former President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election effort.
While there’s less “tension at the very, very top,” those in the campaign believe there is confusion as to who’s in charge a few levels down.
While Harris and her team have been attempting to avoid making former Biden staffers feel pushed to the side, a number still feel they are being doubted by Obama aides, who they also believe were part of the group that worked to push Biden out of the race.
The top communications advisor for Biden, Mike Donilon, has left the campaign and returned to the White House, while Harris hired election attorney Marc Elias even though Biden officials disagreed with him last year over strategy concerns.
Campaign officials hope that the short campaign will mean that there won’t be enough time for proper tension to build, with one person telling Axios that while “things are colliding occasionally...it’s not malicious.”
Another told the outlet the large campaign will work as long as they think they can defeat Trump in November.
Several former Biden aides think the vice president is more electable than Biden following his disastrous debate performance and they’re buoyed by the newfound excitement surrounding the campaign, Axios noted.
However, some have grown annoyed at having to defend Harris after changing positions on progressive issues like Medicare for All and banning fracking. They, in part, see her changing opinions as vindication for Biden, and believe he won the Democratic nomination and presidential race in 2020 as the party supported such issues.
The Independent has contacted the Harris campaign for comment.
The tension within the Harris campaign comes as their candidate is surging in the polls, leading Trump by 3.3 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average.
In the latest USA Today/Suffolk University poll, Harris has gained among key voting groups and holds a five-point lead on the national level.
Meanwhile, polls from Fox News show Harris leading by one point in Arizona, two points in Georgia and Nevada, and she’s only one point behind Trump in North Carolina.
