Harris bolsters White House and campaign staffing as race enters final stretch
Vice President Kamala Harris continues to build out a national presidential campaign, but is also staffing up at the White House amid a crush of press inquiries in the wake of her unexpected presidential bid.
Her office is bringing on Nate Evans, a veteran of her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, as a senior communications adviser. He is on detail from his most recent post as principal senior adviser for strategy and communications for Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Before his time with the U.S. mission at the U.N., he was a deputy chief of staff for Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and served on Harris' 2020 campaign as head of rapid response and as New Hampshire communications director.
Kirsten Allen, Harris' communications director, and Ernie Apreza, her press secretary, will remain in their roles at the White House.
A growing press and communications team continues to build out at campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, led by communications director Michael Tyler and Brian Fallon, a senior communications adviser to Harris who is most notably responsible for crafting her daily message and negotiating with television networks about presidential debates and interview requests.
They have been joined by a handful of White House staff in recent weeks, including Ian Sams, who until last month handled press inquiries for the Biden administration regarding Republican congressional oversight investigations and the special counsel probe of President Biden's alleged mishandling of classified documents that was eventually closed without prosecution.
While Harris is expected to primarily focus on campaign-related activities in the closing seven weeks before Election Day, she does still attend to official duties, including attending events Wednesday to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She also attends high-level national security briefings at the White House.
With Congress negotiating a short-term spending agreement and working through dozens of final Biden nominations, there's always a chance she could be summoned to Capitol Hill to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate.