Senator Kamala Harris was attempting to resolve whether or not to run for president. So in August 2018, she convened her prime workers and advisers in a midtown Manhattan convention room for 2 days of conferences during which a doable bid was analyzed in nice element. The discussions culminated in a moot court docket session. Arguing in favor of a Harris marketing campaign was the highly effective Democratic lawyer Marc Elias. Arguing in opposition to was an equally highly effective Democratic lawyer, Tony West, who was additionally Harris’s brother-in-law. Elias ended with an eloquent, emotional attraction; West cataloged how Harris’s profession as a prosecutor could be used in opposition to her.
For all of the brainpower assembled in that convention room (in scenes principally described in a guide by journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere), nobody from her inside circle might have predicted how issues would transpire. Six months later, Harris introduced her candidacy. It flamed out earlier than the tip of 2019 and earlier than a single main vote was forged. The eventual nominee, Joe Biden, would decide Harris as his working mate (and Elias would play an important authorized position in defending their basic election victory). Then, President Biden abruptly dropped his 2024 reelection bid, and Harris stepped in on the prime of the ticket. Now Harris is attempting to take care of the identical vulnerabilities West recognized throughout that previous inside debate.
5 years in the past, attempting to stave off criticism from progressives that she was a “cop” on prison justice points, Harris shifted left. Now, Trump is popping these Democratic main coverage positions in opposition to her. “You and I take a look at the rallies and what’s being mentioned on Twitter. What actual folks in battleground states are seeing are the TV advertisements,” a prime Democratic strategist tells me, citing Trump’s assaults on her positions from transgender rights to gasoline vehicles and fracking. “The 2019 marketing campaign is coming again to hang-out her.”
In her present marketing campaign, Harris has revised or shed lots of these 2019 stances. This time, she can also be being guided by a really completely different political crew, together with marketing campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, whom Harris retained from Biden’s operation, and David Plouffe, the previous Barack Obama operative Harris added. West—together with marketing campaign supervisor Julie Chávez Rodríguez and pollster David Binder—is likely one of the few gamers from Harris’s failed 2019 main run who additionally maintain senior management positions in 2024. He’s additionally in all probability the determine whose position is least generally appreciated outdoors Harris’s orbit. “The marketing campaign management is a collaborative effort, however Tony West might be essentially the most guiding hand there,” says Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina legislator near the Harris marketing campaign. “There’s nothing that occurs within the marketing campaign that he’s not a part of.”
West and Harris’s sister, Maya Harris, met after they had been legislation college college students at Stanford and married in 1998. He went on to develop into an affiliate legal professional basic, underneath Eric Holder, in Obama’s Division of Justice earlier than working as basic counsel at PepsiCo and chief authorized officer at Uber—the latter job, from which West is presently on go away, reportedly turning into some extent of concern for the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters when the labor union was contemplating endorsing Harris. West has taken on some key duties for Harris’s marketing campaign from its very begin. Within the hours instantly after Biden give up, West sat subsequent to Harris within the vice presidential residence as her crew frantically labored the telephones to line up help for Harris as the brand new nominee, in accordance with The New Yorker. Then West helped lead, together with his previous boss Holder, the speedy vetting of potential vice presidential nominees. He’s been a precious connection to the enterprise neighborhood and donors, and he helped put together Harris for her debate with Trump.
But West, 59, just isn’t a political strategist and doesn’t have outlined turf or particular, ongoing tasks within the marketing campaign. As a substitute, he possesses one thing extra important than a lofty title: the longstanding belief of Harris, who values him as a sounding board. “He’s the one within the room along with her,” says Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s successful 2012 reelection bid and is an off-the-cuff adviser to Harris’s marketing campaign. “That’s a very good factor. And there’s been no inside preventing, which Harris has had in some locations earlier than. A few of that quiet is due to David Plouffe. However a few of it’s Tony.” Messina provides that individuals who’ve labored with West in Silicon Valley say he doesn’t tolerate infighting.
Because the marketing campaign’s remaining stretch unfolds, West is unlikely to be making tactical choices, however he’ll clearly have affect in speaking by way of how these choices are reached. “Tony is a practical individual,” a Democratic insider says. “It’s an unimaginable place to be in if you end up household as a part of a marketing campaign, however he’s been improbable. When he speaks up, he’s all the time making a very good level.” And in the course of the subsequent three tense weeks, West ought to have a lot to weigh in about.
