The Advisors: Part 1 - Precision Strategies

A deep dive on the people behind Kamala Harris

Aug 30, 2024

This will be an ongoing research project examining the consultants involved with Kamala Harris, her campaign and the 2024 DNC Convention. The catalyst for this project was the NYT article which provided the majority of names for the people discussed on Episode 46 of Saturdays with Renee on Black Liberation Media (https://blkliberationmedia.org).

The above graphic is a revised version of the one provided by NYT. This graphic includes pictures of all the advisors discovered, including people who were not named in the article. The dataset used to create the graphic for this series can be found here.

Part 1: Precision Strategies

There are multiple connections between Precision Strategies and Kamala Harris. Harris’ Campaign Manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, co-founded the firm with Stephanie Cutter, who coordinated the 2024 DNC Convention. The third co-founder was Obama for America Digital Director, Ted Goff, who does not appear to be directly associated with the Harris/Walz campaign. O’Malley Dillon, Cutter, and “of counsel”, David Plouffe all worked with the Obama campaign and administration. This is a shared experience of many of Harris’ advisors - this will be fully examined in a future article.

Precision Strategies’ Connections

Precision Strategies rocketed into importance in the marketing world due specifically to this Obama connection. Often presented as the firm behind a winning Obama ticket, the group was quickly recognized nationally and earned an award for its work within three years of its inception. There was not an extensive search completed, but Precision also earned an agency of the year award in 2020.

Within one award press release, special recognition was noted for a campaign run on behalf of the Coalition of Public Safety (now the Justice Action Network). JAN claims it is the “largest bipartisan organization dedicated to criminal justice reform”. Which can mean multiple things, but the organization clearly defines their plan within their 2025 policy agenda. Similar to most bipartisan “criminal justice reform”, this plan (at best) will lead to incremental change that fails to address any systemic issues.

Other publicly named clients include Pfizer, Humana, the NFL, YouTube and Bank of America. The eclectic list of political clients, includes Justin Trudeau, the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Tim Scott, Ricky Torres, the American Legacy PAC, and Emily’s List. Emily’s List, interestingly, is a multi-year client, the former employer of Lephonza Butler, and is currently holding a Board spot for Maya Harris who is on voluntary leave. Both Butler and Harris are also recognized advisors to Kamala Harris.

Another connection of interest is a February, 2023 strategic investment in Precision, by Arby Partners. Within itself, strategic investments are not uncommon, and is not unique to Precision. However, closer examination of the companies listed as associates of Arby Partners revealed government (state and federal) cloud services, a surveillance firm, security services and an Israeli based cloud technology service.

Advisor’s Connections

O’Malley Dillon, while employed by Precision, worked with both Gates Ventures and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as well as Lyft and General Electric. In 2021, O’Malley Dillon was heralded for sending a “scathing email” to Facebook regarding election misinformation during the 2020 presidential campaign. However, the historical connection between Biden’s campaign manager and the social media juggernaut is likely unknown, and the media narrative did not seem to question the relationship. Nor is much noise made currently of O’Malley Dillon’s multiple ties to billion dollar corporations.

Stephanie Cutter became popular during the first virtual DNC convention (2020), as its Chief Program Executive. She has also been recognized for her work with a number of marketing campaigns under Precision. These include health insurance company mergers, and the reputation fixing of a financial institution, news network, NFL Quarterback, and consumer tech company. Specific details are sparse, however, news headlines seemingly connect named clients to major issues impacting working people. Specifically, the healthcare mergers blocked and investigated in 2017; and the Bank of America recovery from a multi-billion dollar settlement in 2014 for defrauding mortgage loan customers. Cutter, who maintains multiple mainstream media connections, spent one season co-hosting CNN’s Crossfire, where she debated political issues alongside Van Jones.

David Plouffe, is currently a Obama Foundation Board member, who leads the Zuckerberg Chan Initiative policy and advocacy team, which he helped to launch. These same Obama connections served him well as a top executive at Uber. At ZCI, he apparently worked alongside Ken Mehlman, also of the global investment firm KKR, and who previously served as the 62nd Chairperson of the RNC and campaign manager to George W. Bush (2004). Evidently unfazed by Republican associations Plouffe only recently left the political podcast he hosted with Kellyanne Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager, when he signed on to work with Harris.

Why is this relevant?

The mainstream narrative seeks to convince voters that Kamala Harris is the lesser evil. However, the connections between this campaign, via both Precision Strategies as a firm and these individual advisors, to mainstream media, big business, policing, Republicans and a Democratic administration which failed to improve the material conditions of regular working people, would indicate otherwise.

As such, voters must note these links and ask better questions.

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