The seven people who make up Harris’s inner circle

Vice President Kamala Harris has a daunting challenge ahead with former President Donald Trump facing her in this year’s election. In the past, she has had the support of many Democratic power brokers and figures in her forays into electoral politics.

She has hand-picked every person in her inner circle she will find useful for a victory in November. That list includes close advisers, key Democratic strategists from previous successful presidential campaigns, and loved ones.

Here’s who Harris is relying on in her 2024 presidential campaign.

Lorraine Voles

Voles replaced Tina Flournoy as Harris’s chief of staff. She stabilized Harris’s staff while the group was going through a period of turmoil with multiple departures in May 2022.

She’s a White House veteran, having worked under former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, and then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.

“Lorraine is a force of nature and a force for good who looks around corners and plays to win,” Chris LeHane, who worked with Voles during Bill Clinton’s administration, told Reuters.

Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA)

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) appointed Butler to the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat in 2023. As a California senator, Butler shares that in common with Harris, and she has known Harris since the early 2000s when the vice president was the district attorney of San Francisco.

Butler has union ties, which she has offered up to Harris to her advantage. And as a black woman, she shares a common identity with Harris. She’s familiar with some racist and sexist attacks Harris could face and says they’re ready for it.

“Bring it,” she said on MSNBC. “Because we are not new to this.”

Minyon Moore

Moore has power within the party as the Democratic National Convention Committee’s chairwoman, and she worked under Bill Clinton as his White House director of political affairs and his director of the Office of Public Liaison.

She also played a key role in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.

Leah Daughtry

The DNCC rules chairwoman, Daughtry provides another longtime Democratic voice for Harris to lean on.

She’s also a prominent religious voice within her inner circle as she is a reverend and has managed religious issues for the party at points within her career.

Donna Brazile

As a two-time former DNC chairwoman, Brazile has obvious influence within the party. But her past history is murky, and she only presided over the DNC for short periods of time in 2011 and 2016 to 2017.

Brazile was accused of sharing questions with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in preparation for a Democratic Party debate that year, as revealed by a Wikileaks email dump. She has since apologized for the leak, but she then said in her memoir that the leaks were “alleged.”

Tina Flournoy

Flournoy has remained in Harris’s inner circle even after leaving her staff in 2022. She, like others on this list, is a black woman who has been a Democratic political operative for years.

She’s now serving on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.

Doug Emhoff

Emhoff is an obvious inclusion, given his status as Harris’s closest ally and loved one. He has had an influential role in both of her campaigns on presidential tickets and has stayed in the public eye.

He’s also the first “second gentleman,” a title that has been embraced by the Harris campaign and championed as another sign of her status as the first female to win on a presidential ticket.

Democrats will aim to make him the first “first gentleman” and make Harris the first female president in the process. His potential new title and Harris’s ability to make history will likely be a rallying cry for the party.