elections

This is who’s running Joe Biden’s campaign

Julie Chávez Rodríguez will be campaign manager.

Julie Chávez Rodríguez stands outside the White House.

President Joe Biden announced that he’s running for reelection on Tuesday morning. Here’s the who’s captaining the ship:

Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Campaign Manager

After serving as one of Biden’s senior advisors and White House director of intergovernmental affairs, Chávez Rodríguez will pivot to leading the reelection push. She has never run a campaign before, but she served as the deputy campaign manager on Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ last campaign and is close with the president.

A longtime Democratic aide, she’s currently the highest ranking Latina in the White House. She also served in several roles in the Obama administration, and is the granddaughter of labor icon Cesar Chávez.

Quentin Fulks, Principal Deputy Campaign Manager

A democratic strategist, Fulks was most recently the campaign manager for Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection campaign last year — the first successful reelection bid for a Democratic senator in Georgia in more than 30 years. Before that, he was the deputy campaign manager and senior political adviser to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, helping flip the seat blue in 2018. He has also held several positions at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, EMILY‘s List and Priorities USA.

Kevin Muñoz, Media Relations

Most recently an assistant White House press secretary, Muñoz will take care of press for the reelection bid initially as a larger team is built out. None of the other hires on the comms team or their potential roles in the campaign have been set in stone, two people familiar with the process said. At least one other campaign staffer is set to be announced soon.

National Co-chairs

Rep. Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-Del.) has been close with Biden for years, helping him choose his running mate for the last campaign. A long-time family friend, she’s also the first woman and first African American to represent Delaware in Congress.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), another longtime ally, threw his support behind Biden in 2020. That gave the president a stamp of approval among Black voters at at a critical time for the campaign, following a string of losses to Sen. Bernie Sanders and coming just days before the state’s primary.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) has served as the “bridge” between the Hill, the White House and foreign capitals during the Biden presidency. Abroad, he has served almost as a proxy to Biden, being talked about in the U.S. and internationally as a shadow secretary of State.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran and the first Thai American woman in Congress, was floated as a vice presidential candidate in 2020. Since then, she has been a Biden ally, but also challenged the president two years ago for not naming Asian American Cabinet secretaries, vowing to oppose nominees on the floor before backing down.

Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) has been a staunch defender of the administration’s handling of the southern border crisis, an issue that’s likely to be central in the 2024 presidential campaign. One of the first two Latinas to represent Texas in the House of Representatives, she represents El Paso, the largest city at the U.S. border.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, a film producer and major Democratic fundraiser, has been key to Biden’s presidential endeavors, backing him in 2020 and raising millions of dollars for Dems alongside the president.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who was also floated as a potential vice presidential candidate, has been a close Biden ally for years. She vocally backed the president despite dwindling Democratic enthusiasm earlier this year, and endorsed him for president in 2020.