WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden is bringing in former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for a senior White House role as he girds for battle in the midterm congressional elections in November, a White House official said on Tuesday.
Bottoms, 52, who ended her term as Atlanta mayor early this year, will become director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, a position left open by the resignation in April of Cedric Richmond, who left to become a senior adviser to the Democratic National Committee.
Biden’s Democrats are hoping to hang on to control of Congress in the November elections, but with inflation raging and high gasoline prices putting pressure on Americans’ wallets, Republicans are expressing confidence they will win control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate as well.
Bottoms, whose appointment was first reported by Axios, has told the White House she will serve as least through the midterms, the official said.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler)
