Kamala Harris' move to hire Obama campaign veteran Jim Margolis comes as she begins delineating senior roles in her campaign. | John Locher/AP Photo 2020 elections Kamala Harris hires famed admaker Margolis in boon to her campaign The GMMB partner is an Obama and Clinton alum.

Kamala Harris has hired Jim Margolis, one of the Democratic Party's most accomplished admakers, as her media adviser, two sources familiar with the move told POLITICO.

Margolis is a veteran of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and served in a key role in Hillary Clinton’s White House bid in 2016. A partner at GMMB, the leading advertising and campaign firm, he spent years as a top adviser to Democratic senators, including former Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.


The move was confirmed by a Harris spokesman after this story published. It comes as she begins to delineate senior roles in her presidential campaign, which raised more than $12 million in the first quarter, with about half of that made online. Margolis will work closely with Harris’ longtime consulting firm, SCRB, led by partners Averell “Ace” Smith, Sean Clegg, Juan Rodriguez and Laphonza Butler.

Smith, Clegg and Butler form a triumvirate of senior strategists. Clegg plays a central role in messaging, while Rodriguez is serving as Harris’ campaign manager, the same job he held during her 2016 Senate run in California.

In Margolis, the California-based firm is getting a national player with extensive presidential experience, including the planning of Democratic presidential conventions.

Margolis received considerable attention Obama's first campaign for a 60-second spot that featured the candidate on the stump and added edge to his change message against Clinton.

"Our nation is at war. The planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it's slowly slipping away," Obama said as quotes from the Iowa Gazette ("For Obama, it's not politics as usual") and Time magazine's Joe Klein ("Scrupulous honesty") flashed on the screen. "That is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do!

GMMB took an aggressive approach in Obama's 2012 reelection against Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It contrasted Romney's economic record with Obama's efforts to save hundreds of thousands of jobs in the auto industry rescue.

Jim Margolis (left), then a strategist for President Barack Obama, walks with campaign manager Jim Messina to a meeting off the Senate floor in May 2012. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

In another notable Margolis ad, the Obama campaign slammed Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, for presiding over one of the worst economies in the country, including losing tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the state.

"Romney economics. It didn't work then. And it won't work now," the ad stated. The label Obama applied to Romney — as a governor who cut taxes on the wealthy like himself while outsourcing low- to mid-level jobs — stuck.

Despite his successes, Margolis has remained relatively little-known compared with peers who make the Sunday show rounds, appear as cable news talking heads and hit speaking and book circuits.

Plans to bring on Margolis have been in the works for weeks— he was spotted chatting with members of Harris' team at events with the senator in South Carolina, though he went unrecognized by the assembled reporters.

