Thirty-five percent of Joe Biden’s permanent staff are people in color, Biden’s campaign assistant told CNN, while 36% of senior staff are people in color. Both older and full-time staff make up the majority of women, and 53% of full-time and 58% of older staff identify as women. Five percent of staff chose not to specify, the assistant told CNN.
The newly discovered data do not indicate a complete staff structure based on race and ethnicity.
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign released some of his numbers later Saturday.
52% of the total number of employees in the campaign are women, while senior staff make up 56% of women and 25% of people in color, CNN spokesman Donald Judd said. A rift of people of color among full-time employees was not available, a spokesman said.
Alida Garcia, co-founder of Inclusv, Differences in a Political Group, told CNN before the Trump campaign released its numbers that the firm was “excited” when the Biden campaign “hit this big first step toward transparency about their team’s makeup,” but he pointed out that “there is obviously room for growth”.
“We are optimistic that they will even be able to beat the numbers that Hillary Clinton ended up on during her campaign,” Garcia said.
According to the associate, senior staff includes department heads, senior advisors, deputy campaign managers, and senior advisors who spend most of their time in the campaign and others. The Assistant notes that the campaign continues the recruitment process and expects to continue adding key leaders throughout the campaign.
The release comes after Biden was pressured by the diversity of his top staff during City Hall, which focused on issues affecting the Asian-American and Pacific islet communities, and amid a growing national conversation about racial justice and inclusion.
Biden confirmed to the applicant that he had done so and instructed his staff to publish post-event diversity data.
“Today we will publish diversity data when we withdraw from this call. We will call you, and the fact is that we have a very diverse staff. And we have a diverse staff moving through all levels, high level and senior positions,” Biden said.
Garcia told CNN that Inclusv has been working on the Biden campaign for months to build a diverse team and has indicated in advance that in the coming weeks it will work in tandem to hold seminars and events for people of color interested in joining the campaign.
Pointing to the lack of specificity of the published data, Garcia said, “Giving each community a better understanding of where they are in the organization is really important how the organization can self-consider to be sure to build teams in states that reflect state voters but for foreign entities that are estimate how many seats at the table they really have. “
“At the very least, we believe that democratic campaigns should reflect the voters who make up their share of the vote for the road to victory,” Garcia said.
Biden often encountered the diversity of his team in the wake of the campaign, telling voters who asked him how he could be an inclusive president to “look at my staff”. He has also long advocated for having a diverse administration that “resembles America,” although his campaign recently on BuzzFeed News would not provide diversity data when requested.
In response to a specific question posed to Biden on Saturday about the representation of Asia-US and Pacific islanders during City Hall, the campaign noted that senior AAPI leaders in the campaign include campaign chief financial officer, chief operating officer, national voter protection director. digital chief of staff, director of digital partnership and director of surrogates.
This story has been updated to cover the diversity numbers from the Trump campaign.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the Inclusv spelling.
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