Biden campaign predictably outstrips Trump campaign on diversity, but still has work to do

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Joe Biden released diversity data on his campaign staff and, in the words of She the People founder Aimee Allison, it’s “not terrible.” The numbers aren’t embarrassing, in other words, but there’s work to be done. Biden will be “more successful having a set of top advisers who relate to and can connect with the very communities they are dependent on to win,” Allison told The Washington Post.

Thirty-five percent of the staff on Biden’s campaign as a whole are people of color, while 53% are women. Five percent of staff did not specify their race. Among senior staff, including “senior consultants who spend the majority of their time on the campaign,” 36% are people of color and 58% are women.

Roughly 60% of the U.S. population is white and just over 50% is women, so Biden’s campaign arguably looks like the United States, but it remains somewhat whiter and maler than the Democratic Party.

The Trump campaign has refused to provide full diversity figures, specifically declining to provide race data for all full-time staffers. Just over half of those full-time staffers are women. Among senior staffers, 56% are women and 25% are people of color.

Biden’s campaign is working with the organization Inclusv to increase its diversity. The group’s founder, Alida Garcia, called the campaign’s current numbers a sign “there is a lot of room for growth.”

The campaign released the data after Biden was pressed about the issue on an Asian Pacific Islander American Vote-hosted virtual town hall.