Kamala Harris is losing a senior adviser as an exodus from the vice-president’s team grows amid reports of turmoil, and friction with President Biden’s staff.
Sabrina Singh, the deputy press secretary, is taking a job at the Pentagon after a turbulent first year of the administration marred by gaffes, messaging failures and damaging reports of internal rifts. Singh is the ninth team member to leave since the autumn, and follows Ashley Etienne, the communications director, Symone Sanders, the press secretary, and her chief speechwriter, Kate Graham.
Harris, 57, is seeking to shake up her office ahead of crucial midterm elections in November and the 2024 presidential race. However, she faces an uphill struggle. Her work since becoming the first woman and first person of colour to be vice-president has done nothing to improve her position in polls.
Her approval rating fell to 28 per cent in one poll in November, making her the least popular vice-president in modern American history. Allies fear that without radical change, the turmoil could be fatal for her ambition to replace Biden when he stands down.
Harris has reportedly grown frustrated that she was marginalised by Biden last year, saddled with the onerous task of solving the intractable immigration crisis on America’s southern border, which has given her no opportunity to shine. Harris has also reportedly complained of a perceived lack of protection from the White House as she endures relentless attacks from the right-wing press.
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Critics have suggested that reports of a dysfunctional operation and a heavy turnover of exhausted, demoralised staff are typical of her abrasive management style.
Gil Duran, a former Democratic party strategist who lasted five months in Harris’s team when she was California’s attorney general, wrote in the San Francisco Examiner in December that the “tales of chaos have a familiar ring to longtime Harris watchers”. He added: “Still, it’s sad to see her repeat the same old destructive patterns under the harsh gaze of the Washington press corps.”
The difficulties have sparked rumours that Biden could replace Harris before the 2024 presidential race, while speculation grows that he will not seek a second term. At a January press conference to mark his first year in office, Biden insisted that he would run again in 2024 with Harris remaining as his vice president.
However, a poll this week suggested that more than half of Americans do not believe him, as the pressures of spiralling inflation, the pandemic and the standoff with Russia pile up on America’s oldest president.
Rumours have persisted for months that other candidates are eyeing a challenge for the Democratic nomination if Biden does not stand, and that Harris will not be a shoo in.
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Biden is said to believe that he alone can defeat Donald Trump if the former president launches his own challenge to retake the White House in 2024, as expected.
If-re-elected, however, Biden would be 82 when he is sworn in for his second term, while Trump would be 77, and the president’s advancing years have triggered unease among Democrat voters. A poll earlier this month found that even among Democrats, only 35 per cent “strongly” approved of Biden’s performance as president and just 43 per cent wanted him to run again in 2024.
Harris has assumed a more prominent role at Biden’s side over recent weeks, through the mounting crisis over Ukraine and the historic nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman to the Supreme Court. The vice-president has also assumed a key diplomatic role, with testing trips to Germany and Poland as the US rallies international support for the effort to arm Ukraine and impose crushing sanctions on Russia.
Singh will be replaced by Ernesto Apreza, Harris’ adviser for public engagement, who worked on the Biden-Harris election campaign in 2020.
