Timothy Kraft

Timothy E. Kraft (April 10, 1941 – January 21, 2024) was a Democratic political consultant, best known as the campaign manager for the unsuccessful reelection bid of U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Background The son of a pediatrician, Kraft was born into a staunchly Democratic family in Noblesville, Indiana. He was raised in the then-Republican stronghold of Muncie, Indiana. In 1963, he graduated with a degree in government from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire; from 1963 to 1965, he served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala. He worked part-time on the staff of U.S. Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, a Carter primary opponent in 1976. In 1966 and 1967, Kraft engaged in graduate work in Latin American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Thereafter, he was something of a political wanderer during the era of the Vietnam War.

Political campaigns Kraft first worked in a political campaign in 1970 on behalf of Jesse Unruh, the former Democratic Speaker of the California State Assembly, who failed to prevent the reelection of Ronald W. Reagan as governor of California, but later served as the California state treasurer. Kraft subsequently settled in New Mexico, where in the capital city of Santa Fe he became the executive director of the state Democratic Party. Though a paid position, he had to engage in the necessary fundraising to guarantee that he was indeed compensated. In 1974, Kraft worked to elect the liberal Jerry Apodaca as governor. Apodaca was running in a close contest against the conservative Republican Joe Skeen, later a long-term member of the United States House of Representatives. As the party executive director, Kraft met Carter, still the governor of Georgia, who came to New Mexico on Apodaca's behalf. The case against Kraft centered on his short-term predecessor as the 1980 campaign manager, Evan Dobelle, who claimed to have witnessed Kraft using the narcotic in 1978 in New Orleans. on the grounds that the "evidence did not warrant an indictment". Still Kraft was saddled with nearly $60,000 in unreimbursed legal expenses; later the Reagan administration obtained passage of a law that reimburses persons in such situations when cleared of wrongdoing, but the measure was not retroactive to cover Kraft.