Both Harris and Trump are historically behind on presidential transition planning

Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET 

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are both behind on transition planning, potentially hindering their respective administration’s work should either of them win the presidency. 

Trump selected the leaders of his transition team on Aug. 16, and Harris chose hers a couple days later. 

“Modern presidential candidates have started their transition work substantially earlier in the spring time of the election year because of a recognition of the lift that is really involved,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, at a press briefing on Monday. “And I will say that it is possible to try and catch up, but the reality is that both candidates have a lot to do.”

PPS, a nonpartisan good government group, hosts a Center for Presidential Transition that facilitates monthly meetings for certain federal agencies to prepare for the presidential transition and helps educate potentially unfamiliar campaign officials on public sector matters like federal hiring procedures and budgeting.  

Valerie Smith Boyd, who leads the Center, said both candidates might feel “a reasonable degree of confidence that they know what’s facing them” because of past White House experience, but emphasized that each would be starting a new administration.

While Harris’ and Trump’s transition planning will look vastly different from each other, the work both of their teams do between now and Election Day will significantly impact the winner’s ability to actually fulfill promises made on the campaign trail. 

Harris

Transition planning for Vice President Harris, who only became the presumptive Democratic nominee in July after President Joe Biden dropped out, might seem easy. However Stier noted that one of the worst presidential handovers in modern history was the “friendly” transition between Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. 

“What you saw from Reagan to Bush were expectations [of continuity] that were not met,” Stier said. “That this would be a third [Reagan] term when it was, in fact, President Bush's first term.”

Simply put, Harris would likely replace some political appointees. But, unlike Trump, she also needs to make sure the appointees she wants to retain actually want to stay. 

“Think about the people who took their seats during COVID in January 2020. A lot has happened in federal agencies and in the world as they've had these jobs, and so to retain them in their positions, or to encourage them to stay in a future administration, requires some thoughtful outreach in an organized way,” Boyd said. 

Harris’ transition director is Yohannes Abraham, who is ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and served as executive director of Biden’s 2020 transition team. 

Trump

The Republican presidential candidate will likely want to avoid repeating mistakes that his team made in 2016. After winning, Trump largely scuttled any pre-election transition planning and started from scratch. 

That decision had consequences. Trump made 500 political appointments after taking the oath of office and signed one executive order during his first 19 days in the White House. In contrast, Biden swore in 1,110 appointees on Inauguration Day and signed 19 executive orders in the same time frame. 

Even though Trump was president just four years ago, Boyd stressed that he still needs to hire 4,000 new political appointees, 1,300 of which require Senate confirmation, to manage more than 400 federal entities. 

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s transition playbook for the next conservative president, detailed plans for that work. However, Trump has sought to distance himself from the initiative, as Democrats warn about its proposals, including removing job protections from much of the civil service. 

Trump’s transition co-chairs are Howard Lutnick, the leader of a financial services firm, and Linda McMahon, who headed the Small Business Administration during the Trump presidency. 

He also named his running mate, JD Vance, and sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump as honorary co-chairs. 

The New York Times on Tuesday reported that Trump also plans to appoint former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, as honorary co-chairs. 

GSA

Federal law requires the General Services Administration to offer office space and information technology support to presidential candidates for transition activities by Aug. 27. 

“GSA can also facilitate introductions to other resources from other federal agencies,” Boyd said. “When the teams would like to initiate the security clearance process for eligible members of their teams to begin to be prepared to access classified information from agencies, GSA can help identify the right points of contact.” 

The candidates have until Sept. 1 to accept any or all of the assistance. Brian Hughes, a senior advisor for the Trump campaign, said in a statement: "We look forward to receiving this notification and will reply when we have evaluated what is being offered." 

Harris’ campaign did not immediately responded to a request for comment. 

A GSA spokesperson said that any memorandum of understanding between a presidential campaign and the agency regarding space and services would be posted online.

GSA appointed Aimee Whiteman, a career Senior Executive Service member, to serve as federal transition coordinator. Whiteman previously served as director of GSA’s presidential transition support team during the 2016 cycle. 

Agencies also have named their own transition directors to plan for the handover, regardless of who wins.