Biden Gives Staff Breakdown

Both campaigns report full-time staffs are majority female
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 28, 2020 9:38 AM CDT
Both Campaigns Say Staffs Are Mostly Women
Former Vice President Joe Biden leaves a campaign event in New Hampshire with staff members in October.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Women make up most of the presidential campaign staffs of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, aides in the two campaigns have reported. Both candidates had faced pressure to release diversity data, and Biden released his first on Saturday. The former vice president's senior staff is 58% female, BuzzFeed reports, and 36% people of color. Among all full-time staff members, 35% are people of color and 53% identify as women. The Trump campaign followed later in the day with a more limited disclosure, saying that that 25% of senior staffers are people of color. The Trump staff is 52% female overall, 56% among the senior staff, per NBC. The disclosures didn't include more specific racial or ethnic information.

The differences between the campaigns are significant, an academic said. "It might not seem like a huge deal, but the disparity between a quarter and more than a third of people of color, especially in this environment, matters a lot," said a politics professor at the University of Virginia. The diversity advocate Inclusv wants to work with the Biden campaign to hire more people of color, aiming to reach 45%. The group's co-founder isn't concerned with the diversity of the Trump campaign staff. "A president who is the candidate of separating families and dehumanizing protesters who are advocating to defend black life, then it doesn't matter who makes up his team," she said. "His values of a diverse and inclusive America are very clear.” (More diversity stories.)

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