If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election in November, one of her major tasks will be assembling a Cabinet for the potential Harris-Walz administration. With the election just over a month away, speculation is already stirring about what names might occupy these seats.
Harris has previously said she would nominate a Republican to her Cabinet if the situation was right. Despite the current era of extreme partisanship in the United States, this wouldn’t be completely unheard of, as prior presidents have had Cabinet members from the opposite party before. However, given that Harris is the Democratic nominee, it can be safely assumed that the vast majority of her Cabinet would be Democrats. But who could fill these seats?
What did the commentators say?
The secretary of state, secretary of defense and treasury secretary are typically considered the most key Cabinet positions. When it comes to the secretary of state, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) has “been mentioned as a contender,” said The Wall Street Journal. Harris and Murphy have had a long working relationship, and they “aligned on many issues during their mutual time in the Senate, particularly on ending the Saudi-led war on Yemen.” Murphy is currently the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Middle East panel, and the Journal reported that the pair continue to speak regularly.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a longtime friend of President Joe Biden, was “seen as a leading contender for secretary of state, but it is unclear if Harris would tap him for the job,” said the Journal. Selecting CIA Director William J. Burns for the role could also be a “move that would give Harris some connective tissue from the Biden administration.”
In terms of secretary of defense, one name that keeps coming up is Michèle Flournoy, which would “make history with the first female defense secretary,” said Alex Gangitano and Laura Kelly at The Hill. Flournoy was the undersecretary of defense for policy during the Obama administration, making her the “highest-ranking woman in the history of the department.” If Harris “wants to break new ground, [the Defense Department] is a place that there’s never been a woman,” a Democratic consultant said to The Hill. Other top contenders include Biden’s former Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl and former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities Mara Karlin, said Gangitano and Kelly.
To lead the treasury, current “Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is popular with business and would be considered,” said Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei at Axios. Wally Adeyemo, the current deputy treasury secretary, is “one of the Biden officials most likely to get promoted in a Harris administration,” and he would be the first Black treasury secretary. Blair Effron, an “investment banking partner who’s very active in D.C. and New York,” is also a potential candidate.
Beyond these top three positions, the other Cabinet-level job typically seen as the most important is the attorney general. On that front, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper is “viewed as the top contender,” said Gangitano and Kelly, as he was “North Carolina’s attorney general for almost two decades.” Harris “will likely look to appoint former attorneys general like Cooper because Harris has stayed close with others who formerly served in the role.” Another name being floated is attorney and former Democratic Alabama Sen. Doug Jones.
What next?
If Harris wins, she will “have to decide whether or not to use her Cabinet to differentiate herself from the Biden administration,” said Newsweek. One strategy “might be to signal some measure of continuity to any voters who have heartburn over the process that led to Biden stepping aside,” Southeast Missouri State University political professor Jeremy Walling said to the outlet. This could mean that there is “value in retaining some members of Biden’s Cabinet,” such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in different, more consequential roles.
And as “Cabinet positions are executive appointments that must be confirmed by the Senate, nominees will also have to be confirmable,” Professor Rosalyn Cooperman of the University of Mary Washington said to Newsweek. The “calculus of who is confirmable will change slightly” depending on whether Democrats maintain control of the Senate or if Harris administration nominees “will be considered by a Republican-majority Senate.”