Biden campaign names political director, adds new team members

Joe Biden’s campaign has elevated Alana Mounce to serve as its political director, along with bringing on board two other senior hires, according to two people familiar with the decision.

Mounce, who has been serving as the Biden campaign’s ballot access director, will take on the critical role of helping chart out an increasingly challenging reelection campaign. Prior to her current job, she served in the White House as the deputy political director in the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach. Mounce was Biden’s 2020 Nevada state director and was the executive director of the state Democratic Party before becoming political director at the Democratic National Committee.

The Biden campaign also said that Roohi Rustum will serve as national organizing director and Meredith Horton will be the national director for voter protection and access. Roohi joins the campaign from the Democratic National Committee, where she served as the national organizing director. Horton is the founder and president of the consulting firm MPH Concepts and previously worked on voter protection for the Georgia Democratic Party.

“I’m thrilled to have these battle-tested operatives join our team,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said in a statement. “This is a team with unparalleled expertise, creativity, and grit that will be critical to winning this November.”

The hires are further illustration of the reelection campaign staffing up in haste after spending the fall and early winter with a relatively small footprint. They also provide an indication of the states the campaign is prioritizing.

In particular, Mounce’s elevation to political director underscores the central role that Nevada — and Latino voters, who make up about 20 percent of the state’s electorate — will play in Biden’s reelection effort.

Latino voters are expected to make up a larger percentage of eligible U.S. voters this election year compared to 2020. According to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, 36.2 million are eligible to vote this year, up from 32.3 million in 2020 — an 14 percent increase.

But the Biden campaign has its work cut out. Polls show that Latino voters have slowly been drifting away from the party and towards Republicans. Biden won Hispanic voters by 21 points in 2020 — 59 percent to 38 percent — which was down significantly from Clinton’s 38-point advantage over Donald Trump in 2016.

Mounce’s move is also the latest sign that the Biden campaign is rounding out its team as it gears up for what is all but certain to be a tough rematch against Trump. Top White House advisers Jen O’Malley Dillon and Mike Donilon left the West Wing to join the campaign earlier this year and the campaign has made a number of other recent hires to its national staff.