Harris is not ready to talk about who could be part of her possible government team

() – Kamala Harris has a packed agenda these days: campaign stops in several states; briefings from advisors on domestic and foreign issues; a constant stream of phone calls, meetings and interviews, all in the hope that he will defeat Donald Trump in next week’s election.

But amid the flurry of activity in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign, there is one discussion that the vice president has made clear to her advisers that she will not address, even in private: who might serve in a future Harris cabinet and administration.

Wary of pushing her luck, Harris has been explicit with her advisers in the final weeks of the campaign that she is not interested in having such conversations, four sources told .

“She has been quite resistant to having those conversations,” said a senior Democrat familiar with pre-election discussions with the vice president. “His stance has been very much along the lines of ‘I have to go win this.’”

The vice president’s refusal to engage seriously in those planning conversations is rooted, at least in part, in superstition. Harris, who once joked that she is “a little superstitious,” has long believed that nothing good can come from getting ahead of things, said those familiar with her thinking.

“She’s superstitious,” a former Harris aide told . “She is a rational, logical and linear thinker, and that means she focuses immediately on what is in front of her and resists the temptation to look too far ahead.”

That trait might be one of the few he shares with Trump. The former president has also been wary of planning the transition before winning an election, partly because he believes it could mean bad luck for the final result.

But he has taken his resistance to formal transition planning a step further, refusing to take critical formal steps to prepare for a transition, missing a couple of key deadlines and breaking with precedent in a way that outside experts warn will could ultimately pose problems for a peaceful transfer of power.

While Harris’ transition team has been operating from government-provided offices in Washington, Trump’s transition team is working from Manhattan and the Willard Hotel in Washington. Representatives from both transition teams met with federal agency transition planners on the White House campus Tuesday to discuss “post-election preparation,” a White House spokesperson said.

Unlike what happened in previous campaigns, Harris’ team has defined practically nothing about the names or profiles of officials who could occupy senior positions in a possible administration, despite the fact that some Washington Democrats and the media avidly feed the speculations. When then-candidate Joe Biden was in the final weeks of his successful 2020 bid, names had already been considered for several positions.

Harris’ team has also not yet requested lists of names to fill potential positions, although in the past, such lists have often been sent unsolicited to transition officials by groups or individuals hoping to leave their mark on future administration policy. .

For a candidate who, throughout her abbreviated campaign, has had to build bridges between progressive and moderate Democrats, those decisions will inevitably be delicate. That’s part of the reason Harris and her team believe they’re best left until after Election Day.

Waiting until you know for sure that a role will be yours before taking on the obligations that come with that job was also the way she operated much earlier in her career. Those familiar with her rise in California say she adhered to a similar ethic when she ran for attorney general and district attorney.

That’s also how he behaved most recently before his rapid rise to the top of the Democratic ticket over the summer. Even as there was speculation that Biden could drop out of the race by 2024, Harris, as reported at the time, was meticulously careful not to do anything until the moment Biden shared his decision.

The reluctance to engage in broad pre-election discussions about the personnel of a potential administration has lent some secrecy to Harris’ transition effort, especially for Democrats who are eager to learn about open positions.

Sources tell that the transition team has focused on creating an infrastructure for vetting, including hiring lawyers and implementing processes that are ready to be put in place upon a Harris victory. And just as his campaign has been cut short, so has transition planning.

“There is no transition without a successful campaign and that is the top priority right now. The transition is focused on establishing the necessary infrastructure to be prepared for the post-election period,” a transition spokesperson told .

But behind the scenes, transition staff are also preparing for various scenarios, including if the race remains too close to call days after Election Day. In that case, both Harris’ and Trump’s teams could begin receiving briefings from the Biden administration, following a measure approved in 2022 that establishes protocols for the transition period.

A victory for Harris would trigger the first same-party transition since 1989, when President Ronald Reagan handed the presidency to his vice president, George HW Bush. The relative rarity of a Democrat handing the keys to the White House to another Democrat injects some uncertainties into the process, most notably the degree of continuity Harris would bring to personnel decisions in her own administration.

Typically, outgoing political officials are expected to submit letters of resignation when the presidency passes to a new incumbent. But if Republicans flip the Senate, there has been talk of keeping some Biden administration officials in place to limit protracted confirmation battles. And there has been talk about how a GOP-controlled Senate could affect who the team puts forward for a nomination.

“They are trying to set up the confirmation processes with an eye toward that perspective,” one source said.

However, it is unknown to what extent Harris would retain members of the Biden administration. She would likely bring in her own slate of senior West Wing advisers, replacing those who had worked for years or decades with Biden. That includes his own selection for White House secretary general.

Harris’ current chief of staff, Lorraine Voles, is not expected to take on the role of White House chief secretary, multiple sources said.

And there is the expectation that much of the Cabinet will take over, allowing Harris to name her own picks for senior positions. Even in two-term presidencies, top Cabinet officials often leave their high-stress positions after one term.

Biden’s Cabinet has seen almost no turnover in four years. However, it is unclear whether Harris would consider current Biden officials who could be seeking higher-profile positions, potentially such as secretaries of State or Treasury or attorney general.

Although Harris has maintained relationships with individual Cabinet and government officials, some believe she would prefer to start over with her own team. Harris has also said she would name a Republican to her Cabinet, but has declined to speculate on who that might be or for what role.

If Harris is not interested in mulling names for top positions in her potential future administration until she knows she has won the election, her transition team has been busy preparing for the possibility of a sprint to Inauguration Day.

The transition work is being led by Yohannes Abraham, former ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Others, including Josh Hsu, the vice president’s former general counsel, and Dana Remus, a senior and outside adviser to the campaign, have been involved in the transition team’s work, a source familiar with the process said.

If Harris’ election is called, the transition team is expected to spring into action quickly, quickly forming agency review teams, naming key White House staff and Cabinet members, and presenting the vice president with a lengthy list of decisions to make.