As the mainstream media continues to paint Kamala Harris’s campaign as "joyous" and full of "good vibes," internally, the vice president’s "Frankenstein" campaign team has become an "unwieldy" group rife with tension, campaign aides told Axios.
After President Joe Biden abruptly ended his reelection campaign in July and endorsed his vice president, Harris pieced together a campaign team of "competing factions"—including top Biden officials, notable staffers from President Barack Obama's reelection campaign, and her own aides. This "Frankenstein" team has sparked internal concerns about its "cohesiveness," six people involved in the campaign told Axios.
Unlike Biden's campaign, which had a limited number of long-serving aides making major decisions, the novice Harris campaign has become a patched-together team with rival powers, Axios reported.
"The entanglement of these different entities has led to many people feeling a real lack of role clarity," one person involved in the campaign said.
Harris’s internal staff tension stems from her larger struggle to simultaneously support her boss’s administration and distance herself from its failures. She does not want to push Biden aides aside but also wants to implement her own strategy, which has led to confusion about who's in charge, those involved in the campaign told Axios.
Harris not only changed the personnel of Biden's campaign but also its messaging, and some Biden aides are frustrated that they must defend Harris’s support of far-left issues such as Medicare for All and banning fracking.
People involved in the campaign hope that the mere 68 days until Nov. 5 won't be enough time for tensions within the "clunky organization" to reach their breaking point.
"It's just a mad dash. Things are colliding occasionally, but it's not malicious," said one person involved in the campaign.