At 1:46 pm on Sunday, July 21st, the Biden for President campaign ended. This had never happened before—a major-party candidate dropping out three months from the election. Thus, Harris was immediately thrust into the final months of one of the world’s most expensive, most complex political exercises—a phase typically preceded by over a year of careful, mounting, methodical campaign construction. Presidential campaigns are sprawling, complex organizations. While not exactly analogous, the Harris campaign brought in $500 million across its first month—that’s more than the company Lyft brought in in revenue that month. So the campaign needs to organize to a similar level of a major corporation like Lyft, but only for a few months, then it disappears in an instant come November 6th. This is no easy feat. Of course, Vice President Harris was gifted a major shortcut just minutes later—the President

endorsed her, functionally guaranteeing that she’d be the party’s nominee, and therefore guaranteeing the full 108 days to run against Trump, rather than the 75 or so that’d be left had the party conducted a shortened primary process leading up to its national convention. And an even bigger shortcut came at 4:51 pm. You see, an American Presidential campaign is not just a concept or a collection of people, it’s a specific legal entity, strictly regulated by the Federal Election Commission. And at that hour, the Biden for President campaign filed FEC form 1805326, amending its name to Harris for President, and amending its URL to KamalaHarris.org. That’s to say: the short answer for how the Harris campaign was able to start so quickly was that it didn’t—rather than starting from nothing and having to hire a campaign manager, set up payroll, lease office space, build an IT department, find lawyers,

do all the tiny, intricate details of setting up a new organization of this scale. They rather just took the existing Biden for President campaign and transformed it to Harris for President—something believed to only be legally possible given her unique status as Biden’s VP. This was an enormous shortcut—it quite literally might not have been possible for another candidate to mobilize a campaign competing in scale to Trump’s—but the adaptation process still was not easy. Despite their similarities, Harris and Biden had some fundamental differences that the campaign had to adapt to. To start, their names were different. As of 4:51 pm, the campaign’s new, legally-registered URL didn’t even have a website attached to it—it simply redirected to the Biden for President website. To capture an enormous wave of inbound support, a new redirect was quickly set up towards Act Blue—the campaign’s fundraising platform of choice—customized to include a

quote from Biden’s endorsement of Harris. But work simultaneously went on to get to a full website. Across Sunday evening, the campaign’s in-house graphic design team prepared 48 options for a temporary logo, and leadership quickly landed on this—a simple, uncontroversial option that would serve the purpose until they had a name to put under Harris’. With that, the website design team was able to wrap up their work in creating a full website off of the template previously used by Biden, which the URL was once again switched to direct to. The suddenness of the transition from Biden to Harris meant that there was no grand campaign kick-off scheduled to mark Harris’ first day, but rather just a normal Washington work-day. So, the following morning, the Vice President’s motorcade emerged from her DC residence at the US Naval Observatory to make the short journey down to the White House. With Biden still stuck at

home in Delaware with COVID. She had previously committed to taking his place at a celebration event of NCAA champion athletes, and therefore this largely inconsequential event was quickly transformed into a media circus as it would represent the first public appearance of the Democratic Party’s new presumptive nominee. She didn’t directly address the elephant in the room, but rather did so indirectly by spending her first two minutes of public appearance since Biden’s announcement praising his legacy, before moving on to more event-focused remarks. But with this out of the way, Harris could turn her focus more firmly onto the campaign and made her way to Maryland’s Andrews Air Force Base. There, she boarded Air Force Two and took off at 3:23 pm for the quick, thirty-minute flight up to Wilmington, Delaware to visit her new campaign headquarters. But the office was familiar—after all, 1000 North West Street was previously the

Biden campaign headquarters up until 26 hours prior, and the Harris campaign decided not to relocate. This was all down to practicality. While the Wilmington location was ultimately picked due to Biden’s influence—Delaware’s his home state and where he often spends his weekends—it’s not tremendously different from where the campaign might have picked otherwise. Normally, the philosophy is to not put the campaign headquarters in DC—it’s too much of a bubble, has high cost of living, and is too full of distractions. So in 2020, the Biden campaign headquartered nearby in Philadelphia, which featured easy access to both DC and the crucial swing-state of Pennsylvania. While clearly not in Pennsylvania, Wilmington boasted more or less the same benefits, the office was already set up, and staff was already settled in the city. So in the afternoon of the first full day of her campaign, Harris walked in, shook hands, took photos, fired up the staff,

then descended into meetings to start to plot days three through 108 of her bid for presidency. And perhaps the most looming question of all was who’s name should go below hers on the signs—who would the Vice President pick as Vice President? Now, for this, there’s traditionally no hard and fast timeline. But as precedent since 1984, Democratic candidates have announced their running mates before the convention, thus giving the newfound Harris campaign all of 30 days to complete what is typically a months-long process. The decision of who to pick as a running mate is perhaps the biggest single decision a candidate makes—the one that has the most potential for either a positive or negative impact—so making a confident, and ultimately correct, choice requires a lot of box checking. The presidential nominee, for instance, needs to build a personal relationship and a sense of trust with the potential VP; the campaign must develop confidence in the candidate’s ability to balance the ticket and optimize the nominee’s

chances of winning. For their part, the potential VP must begin presenting themself to a national audience. And then the most concrete process of the bunch: the candidate must successfully pass an extremely rigorous background check. Unlike almost every other aspect of the campaign, there was no shortcut gained by borrowing the work of the Biden campaign—clearly, they already had a VP—so to move this to-do list forward in a fraction of the time normally allotted, the Harris campaign turned to some outside help by some familiar names: Eric Holder, the former attorney general under Obama; Dana Remus, a long-time legal counsel for arms of the Democratic Party and notable Democrats individually; and their law firm, Covington and Burling. This move saved time—as these payments made to the then Biden now Harris campaign provide. Covington and Burling was already deeply integrated into the campaign effort, while Remus herself had worked

as general counsel for the 2020 Biden campaign. Rather than beginning the process with an extended list, the DC firm immediately initiated the vetting process on just nine names. There’s no public guide as to how exactly a potential vice president gets vetted and every campaign does it a bit differently, but those familiar with the process describe it as incredibly intense. First, there’s the issue of what the politician has done publicly—their policies, their voting record, their sound bytes from every single moment of their public career and life. Then there’s the questionnaire which has garnered a host of creative similes and metaphors but can generally be understood as definitively not fun. The goal of this is to unearth any dirt before it inevitably comes to light once they enter the absurdly bright spotlight of the general election. The questions range from how people in college would describe them, to whether they’ve had an extramarital affair or pay for a subscription to a pornographic

website. Because it will inevitably come out now or later, there’s not much point in lying across the 200 or so deeply personal questions. Beyond the questionnaire, there’s also background checks on personal finances, along with extensive and exhaustive interviews with friends, family, coworkers, and even the vaguest of acquaintances. It’s a massive, extraordinarily expensive process which, in the end, results in a hundreds-of-pages-long report and, as was the case of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, can involve the work of two hundred lawyers. But not much of the vetting process becomes public—while anonymous sources stated that by the 23rd of July the process of vetting VPs had begun, the public and the media didn’t know exactly who—so they speculated, which in turn is another critical part of the process. Outside the campaign, and away from its control, VP selection is also informed in part by who

proactively starts building their own case. The press presents potential options that would fit the campaign's needs—in the case of Harris, the assumption being a white man from either the sun belt or rust belt—and then those names mentioned suddenly have a platform from which to present themselves to an increasingly interested national audience. In the final week of July, governors Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, along with representative Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Department of Transportation head Pete Buttigieg were getting increasing attention and questions about their viability as potential vice presidents. And some were also beginning to mention the name Tim Walz, the governor of a blue, albeit midwestern Minnesota. Where exactly Walz stood on the list of nine being vetted in warp speed by Remus and team as of July 23rd is not known, but after an appearance

that morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, his standing began to rise. Not only does a vice presidential candidate have to pass a rigorous background check, they have to build their own momentum, and for Walz, sitting in front of a fake backdrop of Minneapolis somewhere else in Minneapolis, it began with this line: “…well it’s true these guys are just weird…” Walz’s “weird” characterization stuck and his national presence grew. Following MSNBC, Walz appeared on FOX, something that caught the attention and the ire of Donald Trump. Momentum was building as he then appeared on MSNBC again, then again, then CNN, then Pod Save America all within the same week. Even the new presidential nominee, on the road making a public appearance in Wisconsin, then Indiana, then returning to DC, then appearing in Houston, then western Massachusetts, before eventually ending up in Atlanta, gave a nod to the moniker in her own speech. That same day, another announcement from the

Harris campaign: she’d be taking off on a battleground state tour on August 6th, and by then, she’d be setting off with a running mate. That gave the campaign just five more days, but by then the list had gotten shorter. From nine at the beginning of the process, the vetting team and advisors narrowed the list down to six by the time of completion on Thursday the first of August. Now interviews: Friday, all 6 candidates met over Zoom with a screening team composed of Holder, Remus, and a three-person committee of Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana congressman and Biden White House adviser; former Boston mayor and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; and Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. On Saturday, the list slimmed from six to three after discussions between the screening team and vice president Harris narrowed the list to Walz, Shapiro, and Kelly.

Next: face-to-face meetings at the Naval Observatory where Harris met with all three individually on Sunday to hammer out the final front—who could best connect on a personal level to Harris. While the decision was needed by Tuesday, Harris spent Monday mulling over the decision, while the campaign, with no time to wait, sent advance teams to all three home locations of the potential running mates to begin crafting speeches and rollout plans. The campaign even went so far as to begin crafting the branding and imagery of the campaign signs for all three potential pairings. Finally, on Tuesday, Harris called all three, Kelly—no, Shapiro—no, Walz—yes. In conjunction with making the VP selection, the campaign was also pushing to finalize the details of the breathless seven-state campaign blitz. Campaigns are, at their core, resource-allocation exercises—Harris only has so much time and money,

so the question is where the deployment of these resources would be most effective. For this week, the answer was here. All of these states can be characterized as swing or potential swing states, as five flipped from red to blue in 2020, while Nevada was a narrow win and North Carolina a narrow loss for Biden. Almost all of them also hold claim to 10 or more electoral college votes, with the exception of Nevada. And what crystallized the justification of each as campaign-stop worthy for a campaign so short on time were the demographics of their voter bases. With these states within the rust belt, investing time in each and debuting a running mate with a generally positive standing among labor leaders would strengthen support within wavering union workers. While visiting these sun belt states, more ethnically diverse than average America, the campaign hoped to leverage Harris’s comparative youth and ethnic background to present

a more relatable and in-touch candidate. So with all the pieces together—a schedule for the week and a VP candidate to tag along—Harris was back at Andrews Air Force Base Tuesday afternoon, this time boarding Air Force Two for a quick, 31-minute flight up to Philadelphia to introduce Walz in a packed evening rally. But while Walz stayed overnight in Philadelphia, Harris flew back to DC and was back in her own bed just hours after leaving the stage. But next morning it was more of the same—back to Andrews Air Force Base, back on Air Force Two, taking off at 11:02 am bound for Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After a quick four hours on the ground for another rally, it was back in the air and over to Detroit. Now, this Wednesday night rally looked familiar. That’s because it took place in an airport hangar, and for decades, these buildings—not traditionally designed for events—have been some of the most

popular settings for American political rallies. And there are good reasons for that. To start, there are practical benefits. One of a campaign’s most scarce resources is a candidate's time, so the time saved by not having to motorcade in and out of a city is well worth it. Motorcades are also disruptive—the headlines about traffic relating to a political rally can sour the mood around a visit, and airports are often far removed enough from city centers that even the traffic created by attendees is of lesser impact. The Secret Service also likes it: airports are controlled, secure environments, so there are fewer variables that they have to account for in maintaining the candidate’s safety. But perhaps the biggest benefit of all is not practical, but rather visual. Incumbency in office is, at least on average, a benefit for candidates for President. Therefore, Presidents and Vice Presidents typically make a

big point in their campaigns to remind people of their existing positions. So, the ability to arrive at a rally on Air Force One or Two—some of the most iconic symbols of the American executive branch—then use them as a backdrop for a speech is a powerful, unmissable visual reminder to attendees and viewers that the candidate is, in fact, the incumbent. Non-incumbent candidates certainly do schedule events at hangars, especially in the case of Trump with his private 757, but it appears more common with the incumbent. In the case of this evening’s rally, Harris only arrived on Air Force Two yet left by motorcade as she was bound for a hotel to finally get some sleep. The following morning was unexpectedly leisurely as the scheduled stop in Raleigh, North Carolina was canceled due to an impending tropical storm—an example of the tremendous logistical flexibility campaigns need to maintain on these tightly-packed weeks.

Instead, the campaign used Harris’ time to visit a United Auto Workers union hall. This is indicative of a tried-and-tested strategy for Democratic Presidential campaigns. In recent elections, Midwest states like Michigan have been the most closely fought for, yet a group within these states that the party has been able to consistently win over is union workers. But the Trump campaign has been going after them, and for the first time ever, the President of the US’ largest labor union, the Teamsters, gave a speech at the Republican National Convention, although stopped short of anything resembling an endorsement. So the Harris campaign believed it was worth devoting some resources to shoring up union support by demonstrating unique commitment to them through this smaller, more focused event. But shortly after Harris was back on Air Force Two for an evening flight across the country to Phoenix, Arizona, followed by a motorcade to

the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown for her overnight. The following morning was also unexpectedly open due to another tropical-storm rally cancellation, this time in Savannah, Georgia, so she used the opportunity to visit one of her campaign field offices in Phoenix. The campaign’s job is, of course, to motivate the public to vote for their candidate, but the campaign itself doesn’t have nearly enough staff to do the in-person work it takes to make this happen, so ultimately the direct job of campaign staff is to collect and coordinate volunteers who actually knock on doors and make phone calls. These field offices serve as the hubs of this activity—they are hurriedly opened in the months leading up to the election, and only a few campaign staffers will coordinate hoards of volunteers to roam the streets, deliver talking points, and hand out literature. So just as the United Auto Workers visit was meant to act as a demonstration of

unique appreciation for that group. This was the same—Harris hoped to show her appreciation for the work of the volunteers through her time. The Vice President’s next stop was a Mexican restaurant called Cocina Adamex, where she picked up tamales and took photos with the owners. These restaurant visits are another archetype of political campaign appearances—candidates are typically seen giving speeches to massive crowds, getting on private jets, and generally existing in a world inaccessible to the public. So, by thrusting the candidate out into the real world, the campaign attempts to portray the candidate as relatable, especially to the demographic that will most closely attach to the restaurant of choice. The Harris campaign believes that Hispanic voters are a key target demographic in the crucial swing state—after all, according to a recent poll, Harris leads this group by 59 percent vs. Trump’s 34, but 35 percent of this group have not completely made up their minds and therefore on-the-ground

action like this could make a difference. But finally, it was time for the main event: the 15,000-person Friday-night rally at the Desert Diamond Arena—reportedly, her largest to date. This was followed by another overnight at her downtown hotel, then another flight the next day on Air Force Two over to Las Vegas for another packed arena rally. While that was the last of Harris asking for votes that week, she still needed to ask for something else. After all, she can’t ask for votes unless she has money. So, following the Vegas rally, Harris took an evening flight over to her home state of California, landing in San Francisco well past dark. Roughly 700 attendees paid between $3,300 and $500,000 for a seat at Harris’ Sunday morning fundraiser at the Fairmont San Francisco. Following an introduction by Nancy Pelosi, Harris took to the stage, thanked the attendees for their support, and took photos with the highest-contributing

few, and walked out an hour or so later having amassed $12 million additional dollars. Finally, after passing through eight states in just six days, Harris’ work-week was over, and it was back to DC on Air Force Two, and back to her day-job as Vice President. Now, one aspect of this week might stand out to the American taxpayer—the thousands of miles racked up on Air Force Two as it jetted from state to state not to facilitate Harris serving as Vice President, but rather to facilitate her quest for electoral college votes. But the taxpayer doesn’t pay for this, the campaign does—at least, sort of. You see, the Federal Election Commission more or less requires that campaigns pay for their own travel, and that includes for incumbent office holders who must use Air Force One or Two for their travels for security purposes. Both aircraft are far larger and more capable than what campaigns

normally used to shuttle candidates—notwithstanding Trump—and therefore it’s considered unfair to make them pay more for the aircraft they’re required to use. Therefore, the FEC doesn’t require campaigns to compensate for the actual cost to operate these government aircraft, but rather for what would be the cost of operating the likely aircraft they’d use if they were not the President or Vice President. Details are murky, but it’s reported that the FEC’s reimbursement guidelines index this to the charter cost of a 737, like that being used by Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance. And even then, the campaign doesn’t reimburse for the full operating cost, but rather for the proportion of the aircraft filled by campaign staff, while excluding non-campaign personnel like that of the secret service. But we are able to get some sense of the numbers. That’s because the FEC requires effectively full transparency on how campaigns spend their money,

all published in sprawling spreadsheets. Through the end of May 2024, the Biden/Harris campaign sent some $4.1 million over to the accounts of the Democratic National Committee Travel Escrow Political Action Committee, which handles the bureaucracy of reimbursement for travel expenses. Political Action Committees are also required to report their expenses, so we’re also able to see that this PAC reimbursed the White House a total of half a million dollars through June 2024, when the campaign was still in its early stages—clearly a minuscule fraction of the actual operating cost of Air Force One, estimated around $200,000 per hour. But these spreadsheets also provide a fascinating insight into the other expenses that go into the day-to-day operations of a campaign. For example, on June 25th, an unremarkable Tuesday, what was then Biden For President spent a total of $327,418.67. Many of the filings

were rather mundane—postage for shipping, fees for their expensing software, a subscription to perhaps Photoshop, mileage reimbursement for work-related driving done by a staffer. Getting into the highest-dollar expenses, most are reimbursing companies for their work—three payments of $9,500 plus another of $13,500 to a video production company, for example. Or there’s this $10,000 payment to a political strategy firm led by Jorge Neri, who previously worked in the Obama administration and, based on his history, was likely helping to craft a strategy to target Latino voters in Nevada. There’s also one massive lump-sum payment to fund the DNC Travel Escrow account that pays for campaign-related travel. But the rest of the high-value payments largely went to events and their associated costs—$6,000 for site rental in Wisconsin, $9,000 for equipment rental in Maryland, $35,000 to an event production company in New York, or a colossal $160,000 to an

event production company based in Maryland. More broadly, these payments act as an answer to how these campaigns are able to handle such massive, temporary mobilization all across the country—it’s that, for the most part, they don’t. They pay others to do so. The campaign organization, itself, is really just a central node connecting together the work of event planning companies, political strategy firms, video production companies, marketing agencies, social media consultants, and more—companies that always exist, yet step into their campaign-related roles for those few chaotic months leading up to the American presidential election. One of the most crucial jobs in a Presidential campaign is that of the data scientists. To decide where to best allocate those scare resources, after all, you first need to understand the current landscape of the election. I find data analysis to be a surprisingly interesting and useful process as it allows you to make confident conclusions using messy, real-world data, so I

found the data analysis courses by our sponsor, Brilliant, to be well worth my time. They start out by teaching some real bare-bones fundamentals through interactive exercises and straightforward explanations, then as you progress they bring these small concepts together into the bigger process, and soon enough, you have a decent grasp of this daunting subject. And the same goes for all the subjects they cover—computer science, advanced physics, calculus, geometry, and more. I think Brilliant is perfect for the kind of person who genuinely loves understanding new things as they get you to the level where you can apply the concepts you learn into your everyday life. And they also make learning super practical—their courses break down into short segments of 15 or so minutes, so you can easily use their app to make progress in learning, say, multivariable calculus just while you’re riding the bus. Brilliant has been Wendover’s

longest-running sponsor, which shows that Wendover viewers keep finding their service worthwhile. So, if you want to see why, you can actually do so for free for thirty days if you head to brilliant.org/Wendover, and that link will also get you 20% off an annual premium subscription.

The Logistics of a Presidential Campaign

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The Logistics of a Presidential Campaign

The Logistics of a Presidential Campaign

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