Biden for President
July 28, 2020

ICYMI: Biden for President Announces Key Staff Hires in Georgia

Today, Biden for President announced key staff hires in Georgia. The hires include Georgia natives and current and former staff from the Obama-Biden, Abrams, and Nunn campaigns, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, as well as various state legislative and ballot initiative campaigns across Georgia.
 
Tracey Lewis, Georgia State Director
Tracey Lewis is currently the managing director and owner of TL Strategies, LLC, a woman- and black-owned grassroots consulting firm. Most recently Ms. Lewis was a national senior advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign and previously served as Senator Warren’s deputy campaign manager during her first election in 2012. During the 2017-2018 election cycle, Ms. Lewis was the deputy executive director and chief operating officer for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. In 2016, Ms. Lewis served as a senior advisor in Georgia for Hillary for America during the general election and as the Hillary for America primary states director focused on grassroots programs during the presidential primaries. In 2014, Ms. Lewis worked on Michelle Nunn’s U.S. Senate campaign and then served as the Georgia coordinated campaign director for the Democratic Party of Georgia.
 
Simone Bell, Georgia Senior Advisor
Simone Bell is the president of Simone Bell Consulting, Inc., a small boutique firm dedicated to advising candidates for political office, message development, and facilitation for the non-profit sector. As a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, Simone served from 2009 until 2015. She was a member of the Bi-Partisan Women’s Caucus, Fulton and DeKalb County delegations, Working Families Caucus, and the Legislative Black Caucus. She also had the honor of holding several leadership roles within the Democratic Caucus, including serving as chief deputy whip. In 2018, Simone served as political advisor to the Stacey Abrams for Governor campaign. She was responsible for outreach to elected officials and churches as well as providing leadership to campaign staff across the state.
 
Tharon Johnson, Georgia Senior Advisor
Tharon Johnson is the founder and CEO of Paramount Consulting Group, LLC, a firm specializing in media relations, government affairs, and electoral strategy. Tharon has worked for and advised elected officials including President Barack Obama, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Congressman John Lewis, Congressman John Barrow, former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond. As the national southern regional director for the 2012 Obama For America campaign, Tharon led the presidential re-election campaign effort for 11 Southern states -- including Florida and North Carolina -- two key battleground states.
 
Reese McCranie, Georgia Coordinated Deputy State Director
As a seasoned and trusted political operative with 15+ years of experience in campaign leadership, reputation management, fundraising, media relations, crisis management, and public policy creation, Reese McCranie is no stranger to Democratic politics. Some of the campaigns he has worked on include President Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign where he served as a media strategist for Georgia and as a fundraiser for his 2012 re-election campaign. In 2017, he served as a political strategist for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ run-off campaign. Reese McCranie was appointed to serve as the deputy chief equity officer in the Mayor’s Office of One Atlanta in March 2018. In this role, he worked to advance Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ progressive public policy agenda on equity and inclusion, with a focus on health disparities, criminal justice reform, LGBTQ affairs, and economic empowerment and inclusion, as well as workforce development. Additionally, McCranie strategizes with senior leadership on the Mayor’s legislative affairs agenda.
 
Dominick Perkins, Georgia Political Director
A native of Columbus, Georgia, Dominick Perkins is a longtime aide of Congressman Sanford Bishop, recently serving as the senior advisor to the campaign in 2018. He was the data director for Jim Barksdale's unsuccessful bid to unseat Senator Johnny Isakson in 2016 and has worked on or advised a host of other state and local races in Georgia. Dominick currently serves as the affirmative action chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia and previously served as the political director of the Young Democrats of Georgia.
 
 
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Joe Biden unveils senior leadership team in Georgia
[By Greg Bluestein, 7/28/20]
 
Georgia Democrats have agonized over when Joe Biden’s campaign would devote more serious resources to the state. On Tuesday, he announced members of a senior leadership team that could pave the way for more investment in Georgia.
 
The presumptive Democratic nominee hired five well-known strategists to operate in a state that’s a must-win for President Donald Trump. Republicans have carried Georgia in every presidential cycle since 1996, but recent polls show Trump deadlocked with Biden.
 
The state director is Tracey Lewis, who was most recently a national senior adviser to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign. She has deep Georgia roots, serving as Hillary Clinton’s senior adviser in the state in 2016 and was a key deputy for Michelle Nunn’s 2014 U.S. Senate bid.
 
Former state Rep. Simone Bell will serve as one of Biden’s two senior advisers in Georgia. Bell, who served in the House from 2009-2015, runs a political consultancy firm and was a key deputy to Stacey Abrams during her 2018 bid for governor.
 
Tharon Johnson is Biden’s other senior adviser in the state. One of the state’s best-connected political operatives, he worked for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the late Rep. John Lewis, former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and DeKalb County chief executive Michael Thurmond. He was also President Barack Obama’s regional director in the South during his 2012 re-election bid.
 
Reese McCranie will work as the Biden campaign’s coordinated deputy director. A veteran of Obama’s 2008 campaign, McCranie was a Reed deputy and strategist for Bottoms’ 2017 runoff victory before he was tapped to help lead the city’s Office of One Atlanta, which focuses on equity and inclusion.
 
The campaign’s political director is Dominick Perkins, a longtime aide of U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop who was the data director for Jim Barksdale’s 2016 bid for U.S. Senate. Perkins is now the Democratic Party of Georgia’s affirmative action chair and was political director for the state’s Young Democrats chapter.
 
With big leads in national polls, Biden is facing pressure to expand the political map beyond traditional battleground states to targets like Georgia and Texas where Republicans have long dominated.
 
Democrats haven’t won a statewide election in Georgia since 2008, though the margins have grown steadily tighter. Fueled by gains across metro Atlanta’s suburbs, Democrats flipped a long-held Republican congressional seat in 2018 and forced two statewide races into runoffs.
 
This year, emboldened Democrats warn it would be “political malpractice” to sideline Georgia, with two U.S. Senate seats on the ballot, a couple of competitive U.S. House seats and a chance to defeat Trump, who carried the state by 5 percentage points in 2016.
 
The tight polls have forced Trump to start airing ads in the state over the summer. And Republican-aligned groups are pouring tens of millions of dollars into TV campaigns backing GOP candidates for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats.
 
Trump’s campaign has fast fortified the state. The Republican’s Georgia campaign boasts more than 100 staffers and thousands of other volunteers who have knocked on a quarter-million doors
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