People fleeing Columbus as the mayor hires a Kamala Harris-affiliated adviser for his reelection campaign

Instead of solving the problems that are leading many Columbus residents to leave, the city’s mayor hired a Democratic campaign adviser who worked on the failed presidential campaign of former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther hired Julia Kennedy in April as a new senior advisor to help him with his reelection campaign for the 2027 election, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Kennedy also worked on the campaign of former Democratic President Joe Biden.

Ginther and Kennedy met for the first time in 2008, when she was still a student at The Ohio State University, pursuing her neuroscience major and involved in student government. She recently moved back to Ohio after nearly 15 years of working on campaigns in 24 states.

Kennedy said that Ginther, who was on the Columbus City Council at the time, was the person who convinced her to work in politics after they collaborated on the University Area Safety Committee, a joint effort by the city and the university, according to the news source.

Kennedy also said that Ginther got her a job in 2009 on the city’s Issue One campaign, which resulted in a citywide increase in income taxes.

Ginther hired Kennedy when she moved back to Ohio after working for political campaigns in 24 states for the last 15 years. Kennedy previously worked for the “blue wall battleground states” team for Harris’s failed 2024 campaign and advised the White House and Democratic National Convention while Biden was still in office.

She also worked as Amy Klobuchar’s deputy campaign manager in 2020 until the politician dropped out of the presidential race, after which Kennedy was employed by the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign as a polling and strategy director.

A potential reason why Ginther hired Kennedy was that he might need to face a challenge in the race. Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin allegedly previously implied that he could run against Ginther, according to the news source.

Hardin, an openly gay man, didn’t specify his political party affiliation.

Even though he and his team allegedly do not expect a challenge from Hardin, they are nevertheless preparing for it, Ginther told The Dispatch. In addition to hiring Kennedy, one way he and his team are preparing for the race is by using $1.3 million currently available to his campaign.

“The stakes of all elections right now are so high in terms of where we are as a country,” Kennedy told the Columbus newspaper. “So, regardless of whether he has an opponent or many opponents, it’s still an extremely important election.”

Ginther also told the newspaper that “no matter what happens in terms of opponents or no opponents, [he is] ready to have a conversation about [his] vision for the future with voters, and [he knows] she can help me do that,” referring to Kennedy.

“With Julia, I had an opportunity to bring in and work with the best of the best, so I took it, not just because of our personal connection,” he said.

While Ginther is busy preparing to run for reelection for the fourth time, Columbus is becoming less attractive as a place to live due to high property taxes and homelessness, The Dispatch previously reported. Another problem facing Columbus is its financially troubled school system, which has lost millions of dollars and fired almost 300 employees.