Ammar Moussa is very particular about his haircuts. He’s had the same barber for the past two- and-a-half years in Washington, D.C., working at the Democratic Governors Association and, prior to that, for Congressman John Conyers Jr.

But the Kamala Harris campaign for president is headquartered in downtown Baltimore, and Moussa’s new job as a press aide for the campaign meant a move to Charm City and, yes, a new barber. He’s tried a couple different shops since moving two months ago, and, exasperated, he turned to Keenen Geter for help. Geter, the resident Baltimore local working on the campaign’s national advance desk—he grew up in Park Heights and has lived in the city his whole life—turned Moussa on to a Dominican barbershop in West Baltimore. He can now finally rest easy. “I’m very pleased with my experience,” he says.

This type of minutiae is universal for anyone adjusting to a new place. But the transient nature of politics, where a staffer’s new home is picked for them, presents a unique set of circumstances. There is no easing into the high stakes world of a presidential campaign; every move and decision is vital, especially in a race as contested as the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Politics so often is focused on winners and losers and punditry that it’s sometimes easy to forget that those on the ground working every day are people who need places to live and eat and grocery shop.

By all accounts, Baltimore has provided the people working to elect Senator Kamala Harris the president of the United States just that, giving those with little exposure to the city a new appreciation for all it has to offer. “It shines a bright light on Baltimore,” Geter says.

Mike Nellis, 31, works for the Harris campaign as the digital campaign director. He lives in Fells Point with his wife and newborn son, Theodore, who can now call Baltimore his hometown, since he was born in April. As Nellis heads up a team, he makes a point to make sure others who come aboard feel welcome, taking them out to happy hours and exploring Baltimore. “I always want to find local places because, to me, that’s what’s most interesting about living in a new city,” Nellis says.

That’s a common sentiment among staffers, who are eager to get to know the city they hope will be their home for the next year and a half. Missayr Boker, a national political director for the campaign, loves going to Nalley Fresh for a quick salad lunch, and counts Rye Street Tavern among her favorite Baltimore restaurants. Before the campaign moved into its new downtown office, Mother’s in Federal Hill was a staff favorite, too.

Boker, who moved to the city in May, says that the staggered nature of exactly when staffers started their posts in Baltimore has been an advantage, as newcomers can turn to those who have been around a bit longer for advice on getting settled and places to go. “We’ve all sequenced our arrivals in Baltimore, and so I think the good thing about having people get here before you is that there are a lot of recommendations for where to live,” Boker says. “Each area or building provides something a little bit different from people you trust on what might work best for you. I really leaned on my colleagues who have gotten to Baltimore ahead of me to help me find a place that made sense for me and my lifestyle.”

Seeing as a vast majority of staffers are not from the area, establishing a sense of comfort is a top priority. Many have turned to Geter for advice on places to live—he says one colleague peppered him with questions about Mt. Vernon, where he lived as a student at the University of Baltimore. Nellis was able to find a house that had an extra room for a nursery, and has been to several Orioles games as a way of getting to know the city.

Boker lived in D.C. prior to joining the campaign, and appreciates that she can now walk to work in lieu of her previous 35-minute commute to Capitol Hill. Staffers also cited Baltimore’s relative affordability as a perk, compared to their previous homes of D.C. and Los Angeles. “These campaigns are really taxing,” Boker says. “It’s a slog. I think being able to spend your time doing the things outside of work that make you happy, whether it’s working out or make yourself dinner, is something that I have internalized and really adds to me feeling good about things.”

Those who work the long hours day in and day out on the Harris campaign have elected to do so in service of a person and a movement they believe in wholeheartedly. These are people who see their colleagues as much, if not more than, their own families. That kind of community is something not a lot of workplaces have, and as they’ve discovered, Baltimore is an ideal place for fostering this sense of community and, if all goes as planned, moving their operations a short drive down 95.

“[Baltimore] was definitely chosen for us,” Boker says. “But I think one of the things that’s really cool about being in Baltimore is that it feels consistent with the spirit of this campaign, which is For the People. Now that we’re all here, we really get a sense of the culture and the ethos of our campaign really being represented by the city that we chose to have our headquarters in.”

California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, the first African-American to announce as a 2020 candidate for president, did so symbolically today on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And, her team confirmed to Baltimore magazine, the Harris campaign will be headquartered in Baltimore.

Why Harris believes she is the best person to serve as the next president of the United States is important—as is her record and her vision for the future. Those issues will certainly be addressed in the coming months, but Harris’ announcement also begs another, immediate question: Why Baltimore?

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Harris had been looking to line up an East Coast location for her headquarters so that she would be near the major cable news outlets all of which operate on Eastern Time. Harris already has a strong presence on the West Coast so placing her campaign headquarters in Baltimore—square in the densely populated Mid-Atlantic region—quickly helps introduce her to a new set of voters as well.

“My initial reaction is that this is a really great move for a few different reasons,” said Mileah Kromer, associate professor of political science at Goucher College and the director of the Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center. “Baltimore is majority African-American city at a time when the backbone and lifeblood of the Democratic Party is African-American women, like those who turn out to vote here. It’s a setting that can play an outsize role in generating resistance to the Trump Administration. And, maybe foremost, it’s a city where the intersection of justice and race matters when she’s touting her record as a prosecutor and on criminal justice issues.”

Kromer adds that Harris’ record as California’s top prosecutor and that state’s attorney general could potentially generate some controversy in Baltimore’s activist community. But addressing those issues head on in a city like Baltimore sends the message that she’s a serious candidate.

The Harris campaign would not comment on when her Baltimore office will open or where it will be located, but did say a second campaign office will open in her hometown of Oakland, where a kick-off rally is scheduled for January 27. Harris’ logo—with its red and yellow colors and theme, “Kamala Harris For the People”—is a nod to another pioneering president bid: Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 campaign.

The 54-year-old Harris was by no means a stranger to the East Coast before her election to the Senate in 2016, however. She earned her B.A. From Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1986. Harris has made a name for herself in the Senate from her seat on the high-profile Judiciary Committee, using her position to seize a Democratic leadership role on national issues from Supreme Court nominations to the Trump Administration’s child separation policy at the southern border. Her sister, Maya, former executive director of the ACLU of Northern California and Hillary Clinton campaign policy advisor, will serve as the campaign chair.

Harris previously made an appearance in Baltimore as one of the headliners of the NAACP’s national convention in 2017. She also joined Ben Jealous at one of his campaign rallies in Prince George’s County over the past summer. In the lead-up to election season, Harris has recently published her memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. A Facebook page, Kamala for Maryland, seeking campaign volunteers, launched in December.

Harris is not the first—nor certainly the last—Democrat who will make a bid for the nation’s highest office. Former Maryland Congressman and Montgomery County business John Delaney has been off and running since 2017. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts announced her candidacy at the end of December and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York announced last week. U.S. Rep Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii has also launched her campaign—bringing, with Harris’ entry, the number of women already vying to become the 46th president to four. Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, among a host of others, are considered likely to join the fray.

Diane Fink, executive director of Emerge Maryland, a nonprofit that identifies and trains Democratic women seeking political office, was thrilled to see both that Harris was throwing her hat into the ring—and that she planned to open her campaign headquarters in Baltimore.

“The more women running for public office, for any public office, the better,” Fink says. “When one or two women are running among 10 men, their voices get lost and they’re subject to more unfair sexist attacks.”

Fink noted that just the presence of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race created a huge uptick in the number of women running for office. She believes Harris’ campaign, being based in Baltimore, could have a similar impact citywide and statewide.

“It’s inspiring and demystifying when you see someone else up close run—especially if they are approachable, it takes some of the fear and apprehension of running away,” Fink says. “Maryland already has a strong history of women running for high office—Senator Barbara Mikulski and Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi. I think we’ll see many more women stepping up.”