President Joe Biden announced his highly anticipated re-election bid for 2024 on Tuesday, April 25, and named some of the previously undisclosed figures on his newly constructed campaign team — that he hopes will help lead him all the way to a successful consecutive-Presidential election win — including the appointment of rising Texas Congresswoman Veronica Escobar as one of his seven national co-chairs. 

“We’re in the fight of our lives — for our freedom and our fundamental rights. We need a President who will fight to defend those values and more. I’m proud to endorse @JoeBiden and so honored to join his campaign as national co-chair!” Escobar tweeted, confirming the news. 

The former El Paso, Texas County Judge and current three-term serving U.S Representative joins a reelection team that features current senior advisor to the president as well as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, serving as campaign manager. 

Chavez Rodriguez is a longtime Democratic aide, is currently the highest-ranking Latina in the White House and is granddaughter of well-known Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez and labor activist Helen Fabela Chavez. 

This is her first time leading a Presidential campaign and would be the first Latina to win as a campaign manager should the race go in Biden’s favor. 

Escobar’s six other fellow national co-chairs are Delaware Senator Chris Coons and Rep. Lisa Blunt-Rochester, Rep. Jim Clyburn, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, an Army veteran and former vice chair of the national party, Jeffrey Katzenberg, movie mogul and mega-fundraiser, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. 

Escobar told the El Paso Times on Apr. 27, that she had spoken to the President over the course of the weekend prior to his announcement on Tuesday and was offered the top position on Sunday. 

"I was floored," Escobar said, "but obviously honored, thrilled and excited when the president called me on Sunday. I had no idea I was even being considered." 

Representing the Lone Star State’s 16th Congressional District, Escobar took office on January 3, 2019, making history as the first woman elected to represent El Paso and the first of two Latinas from Texas — Houston Rep. Sylvia Garcia — to serve in the U.S. House, according to the congresswoman’s website.

She also notably replaced former Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke in Congress, who had held the seat for three-terms. 

Prior to Congress, the third generation El Pasoan served as a member of the El Paso County Commissioners Court, first as a county commissioner and then as county judge.

She was elected as a freshman class representative in a secret ballot conducted by her peers, filling the vacancy left by Katie Hill, who’d resigned from Congress in November 2019

In February, 2020, Escobar delivered the Spanish-language response to former President Trump's State of the Union Address where she touched healthcare, immigration, the national debt, the importance of diversity, the 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, wealth inequality, gun violence, and the United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement. 

She went on to call the former President and the Republican-controlled Senate "the greatest threat to our security."

While her direct influence on the race as national co-chair is limited as it does not include much big decision making or any hands-on work, Escobar — who’s been outspoken against Trump in the past — has recently become a rising star in politics because of her hard stances on issues that will particularly attract attention in 2024 such as immigration, gun violence, and border security. 

But the role itself raises one's national profile that usually leads to a Senate run or any other election position. Escobar said she’d be involved with fundraising, engaging with voters across the country, creating messaging and other tasks. 

Other named members of the re-election campaign also include Quentin Fulks who will serve as Principal Deputy Campaign Manager. The Democratic strategist is coming straight off a winning campaign for Sen. Raphael Warnock’s reelection campaign in 2022, which was notably the first successful reelection bid for a Democratic senator in Georgia in more than three decades. 

Fulks was previously deputy campaign manager and senior political adviser to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2018. 

Kevin Muñoz, the most recent assistant White House Press Secretary, will oversee Media Relations and is in charge of press for the reelection bid.