Hillary Clinton is trying, among other things, to make greater inroads with young female voters. | AP Photo Clinton expands communications team

Hillary Clinton’s Brooklyn-based communications team is expanding as it gets ready to do prime-time battle with Donald Trump.

Jess McIntosh, vice president of communications for EMILY’s List, is set to join the campaign at the end of May in a newly created position, director of communications outreach, POLITICO has learned.


At EMILY’s List, a political action committee that helps elect female Democrats who are abortion-rights supporters, McIntosh has served on the senior leadership team for the past five years. As a Clinton staffer, she will now oversee messaging for media figures, social media influencers and other allies as they prepare to define Trump ahead of the Republican National Convention and beyond. McIntosh, a New York native based in Washington, D.C., will move to Brooklyn for the position and report to Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri.

The hire from EMILY's List is another signal of the big role that gender is expected to play in the general election.

The new position is expected to help address a concern some Clinton surrogates who appear on television have raised — how to stay focused on one line of attack when the candidate they're up against is the erratic and contradictory media showman that is Trump.

“Jess McIntosh is a force,” EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock said in a statement. “I am thrilled we will continue to partner with her to elect the first woman president and am confident her efforts here have laid the groundwork for the second, third and fourth woman presidents.”

The move will not be a stretch for McIntosh, who with EMILY’s List, has worked on behalf of Clinton since she launched her campaign last year. In March, EMILY’s List launched a #ShesWithUs campaign that targeted the millennial women voters Clinton has struggled to win over. It has also partnered with Priorities USA, the super PAC backing Clinton, in a $20 million effort to engage women voters in battleground states.

At EMILY’s List, Marcy Stech will replace McIntosh as vice president of communications. A Clinton campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

