Alana Mounce may have gone national, but she first cut her teeth in Nevada Democratic politics.

Mounce was the former executive director of the state party and was the Nevada state director for the Biden campaign in 2020. 

After working in the White House after the election, President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign named Mounce as its 2024 ballot access director, tasking her with ensuring the president is on the ballot in all 57 states and territories.

The role is both a technical one — getting signatures on petitions and filing with secretary of states’ offices — and an organizing one, reactivating the support networks and groups that powered Biden to victory in 2020. In Nevada, no petition or signatures are required — a presidential candidate wishing to appear on the ballot for the Democratic presidential primary needs to file with the secretary of state’s office by Oct. 16.

Julie Chavez-Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that Mounce and Varoon Modak, who will serve as general counsel for the ballot access team, will be “responsible for finding new and innovative ways to engage and organize Biden-Harris supporters where they are, which is especially important in our battleground states.”

Biden won Nevada in 2020 by about 2.4 points, making it one of those critical battleground states that will determine the outcome of 2024. 

In an interview with The Nevada Independent, Mounce previewed the campaign’s state strategy, discussing the issues Biden will tout and how the campaign plans to partner with groups on the ground to drive engagement early in the cycle.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Explanations of certain terms or ideas have been added in italics as needed.

What does your job entail as ballot access director?

As the ballot director, I’m overseeing the effort to get the president on the ballot in 57 states and territories. I’m also in charge of managing, moving, [and] tracking our delegate selection process all the way to the national convention … Really what that means is to leverage the volunteer network that we have built over the years, [those] long-standing relationships we have had across the country and in states and communities [and] nurture those relationships to do work on behalf of the campaign.

What does that look like day-to-day?

Every day’s different. Right now, we’re really focused on building out our team. We’re reaching out to people who were critical to our efforts in 2019 and 2020, getting them re-activated, [providing] training materials, talking to community members, signing petitions.

Beyond just getting the president on the ballot, how can you use the ballot access process to engage supporters?

It starts the conversation about the importance of the election and … building the foundation of our campaign. One, it shows we’re in your community, and you have an opportunity to get involved. Two, we’re [collecting] data for the campaign. We’re growing, we’re getting stronger, we’re bringing more people onto the team. All of that capacity is going to be helpful in turning out voters in the next year.

Is there anything you learned during your time in Nevada that you can apply to this job?

Nevada really taught me the importance of taking nothing for granted. You have to marshal the resources to do the work early. All that grit and determination [I learned in Nevada] has been really helpful in my personal and professional life.

It seems like, as always, Nevada will be a swing state. What will the campaign be doing to ensure Nevada stays in the win column for the president?

We’re already doing work in Nevada. We’re up on TV in the state, talking about issues that are important to Nevadans, [and] talking about the [president’s] record on prescription drugs, reducing costs for seniors, bringing clean energy jobs in the state. We’ll continue to do that in our communications with voters.

That network of support that we have nationally is rooted in Nevada and [in] issues we care about. We will lean on those organizations, those partners, that network. Especially looking at Nevada — Nevada’s not a state where we’re going to be collecting petition signatures, but there [are] incredible leaders.

One of the biggest differences in running a campaign in 2020 and 2024 will be the role of the pandemic. With the pandemic having mostly receded, how will that impact the way you campaign in 2024?

I’m really proud of the work we did in 2020, despite the pandemic, and organizing not in the ways we usually do. We were still successful and found creative ways to bring our supporters to us. We still did — in a way that was safe — large early vote events, partnered alongside [then-Assemblyman] Edgar Flores (D-Las Vegas). [We] had people out in the streets, visibly showing support. That still gave the same energy and enthusiasm and opportunity for people to say I’m really excited [about Biden].

Looking ahead into 2024, we’ve got to do those things again. Nevada’s a place where you need to be in person — where [voters] grocery shop, where they go to church, where they congregate — to talk about important issues and our record, and make sure they have all the information they need. There are many ways you can do that — in person, on TV, in their mailboxes.

We did that effectively in 2020. And we’ll use all that’s available to us in 2024.