For some, it’s been a conversation off to the side at the White House congressional holiday party. Others have gathered at actress Eva Longoria’s house in Los Angeles. Still more have huddled on Air Force Two or gathered for a series of Saturday sessions and dinners that Vice President Kamala Harris has been hosting at the Naval Observatory.
More than two dozen sources tell CNN that Harris has been gathering information to help her penetrate what she sometimes refers to as the “bubble” of Biden campaign thinking, telling people she’s aiming to use that intelligence to push for changes in strategy and tactics that she hopes will put the ticket in better shape to win.
Multiple leading Democrats, anxious about a campaign they fear might be stumbling past a point of no return, say their conversations with Harris have been a surprising and welcome change, after months of feeling sloughed off by the White House and Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
“The ‘bedwetting’ complaints are running thin with people,” said a person who attended one of the meetings, describing the general state of anxiety circulating in top Democratic circles. “The West Wing and the campaign need to be better.”
Harris did a good job fielding those responses, the person added, “and deserves credit for it.”
Many of those people also say that the conversations have shifted their opinions of the vice president, seeing her now as a more integral and complementary part of the reelection effort.
Harris’s stepped-up efforts come at a critical moment. Her office has largely stabilized after early years of intense dysfunction, and she has been slowly asserting herself more confidently in public, including in her speech Friday at the Munich Security Conference that was…
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