By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden’s team has picked Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior adviser at the White House and deputy campaign manager of his 2020 presidential campaign, to be his campaign manager for the 2024 election, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Rodriguez, who is director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, has agreed to take the role, the source said.
The source later added that Biden has yet to make the offer to Rodriguez himself. Rodriguez was Biden’s senior advisers’ top choice for the role after they interviewed nearly a dozen people, the source said.
A second source said Rodriguez has been a major ally within the West Wing for Vice President Kamala Harris, who has struggled to win over the Washington establishment during her tenure. Rodriguez was a senior aide on then-Senator Harris’s 2020 presidential campaign and had worked in her Senate office.
Biden, a Democrat, has said he plans to run for re-election. He could make a formal announcement as early as Tuesday.
The president, 80, is gearing up for what could be a bruising campaign. His team has been eyeing Wilmington, Delaware, where Biden has a home, as the base for the campaign.
Biden is expected to keep his circle of close advisers at the White House even as he runs for re-election, making the campaign manager’s job, based outside of Washington, tricky.
His former campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon is now a White House deputy chief of staff, and other longtime senior advisers including Anita Dunn and Steve Ricchetti are expected to stay on at the White House.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; editing by Diane Craft)
