2020 elections
Kamala Harris to slash staff, restructure
campaign as she hemorrhages cash
Her campaign is millions of dollars behind her top rivals.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. | Mark Makela/Getty Images
P o l i t i c o
By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
and SCOTT BLAND
10/30/2019
Kamala Harris is dramatically restructuring her campaign by redeploying staffers to Iowa and laying off dozens of aides at her Baltimore headquarters, according to campaign sources and a memo obtained Wednesday by POLITICO, as she struggles to resuscitate her beleaguered presidential bid.
The moves come as Harris is hemorrhaging cash and in danger of lacking the resources to mount a competitive bid against better-funded rivals in Iowa. The overhaul will touch nearly every facet of Harris’ operation, with layoffs or re-deployments coming at headquarters, as well as in New Hampshire, Nevada and her home state of California, a Super Tuesday prize that her advisers once viewed as a big asset.
Campaign Manager Juan Rodriguez will cut his salary, according to the memo, which was just over $10,000 a month in the third quarter of the year. Harris’ consultants will also have their payments reduced and the campaign plans to trim and renegotiate other contracts to slash overhead. Along with getting back in the black, a big motivation behind the cost-cutting decisions is a plan to stash enough resources for a seven-figure media buy in the weeks before the Iowa caucus.
The major shake-up is the latest strategic maneuver to help rescue a campaign that was still being viewed as a likely early-state juggernaut three months ago after Harris confronted Joe Biden in a debate over school busing. The performance seemed to signal the realization of the promise Harris displayed during her campaign launch before 22,000 spectators in Oakland. Yet it’s been downhill since the summer spike.
Harris is hoping to duplicate the successes of past campaigns that shed staff and came back to win primaries after near collapses the year before — and to avoid the fate of countless other hopefuls who spent too big early and faded late. In the memo, Rodriguez, who oversees the campaign’s budgeting, describes an “incredibly competitive resource environment” — in other words, a keen competition for campaign dollars from larger donors. South Carolina, the other early state besides Iowa that would be key to a Harris turnaround, will be spared any cutbacks.
Harris faced a wave of skepticism over the summer as she flat-lined in polls and spent much of her time at big-dollar fundraisers and away from the campaign trail and news media. As she’s pivoted to Iowa — Harris plans to spend Thanksgiving there — her campaign appears to be headed in the opposite direction: She’s held fewer than 10 fundraisers over the month of October, a person familiar with her schedule told POLITICO.
That's deepened concerns among Democratic officials and some campaign aides in recent days about whether she’ll have the money to compete in early states where she’s being swamped by competitors with higher polling figures.
Further fanning these fears is what some aides described as a feeble digital fundraising effort to open the latest quarter. Rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg raised more than $1 million each within 24 hours of the October debate, with Klobuchar putting the number at $2 million in the days after their effective confrontations of Elizabeth Warren.
Undergirding Harris' weak fundraising performance and overspending is her increasingly fragile standing in Iowa polls and lack of a standout moment the past four months.
www.politico.com
.
Kamala Harris to slash staff, restructure
campaign as she hemorrhages cash
Her campaign is millions of dollars behind her top rivals.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. | Mark Makela/Getty Images
P o l i t i c o
By CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO
and SCOTT BLAND
10/30/2019
Kamala Harris is dramatically restructuring her campaign by redeploying staffers to Iowa and laying off dozens of aides at her Baltimore headquarters, according to campaign sources and a memo obtained Wednesday by POLITICO, as she struggles to resuscitate her beleaguered presidential bid.
The moves come as Harris is hemorrhaging cash and in danger of lacking the resources to mount a competitive bid against better-funded rivals in Iowa. The overhaul will touch nearly every facet of Harris’ operation, with layoffs or re-deployments coming at headquarters, as well as in New Hampshire, Nevada and her home state of California, a Super Tuesday prize that her advisers once viewed as a big asset.
Campaign Manager Juan Rodriguez will cut his salary, according to the memo, which was just over $10,000 a month in the third quarter of the year. Harris’ consultants will also have their payments reduced and the campaign plans to trim and renegotiate other contracts to slash overhead. Along with getting back in the black, a big motivation behind the cost-cutting decisions is a plan to stash enough resources for a seven-figure media buy in the weeks before the Iowa caucus.
The major shake-up is the latest strategic maneuver to help rescue a campaign that was still being viewed as a likely early-state juggernaut three months ago after Harris confronted Joe Biden in a debate over school busing. The performance seemed to signal the realization of the promise Harris displayed during her campaign launch before 22,000 spectators in Oakland. Yet it’s been downhill since the summer spike.
Harris is hoping to duplicate the successes of past campaigns that shed staff and came back to win primaries after near collapses the year before — and to avoid the fate of countless other hopefuls who spent too big early and faded late. In the memo, Rodriguez, who oversees the campaign’s budgeting, describes an “incredibly competitive resource environment” — in other words, a keen competition for campaign dollars from larger donors. South Carolina, the other early state besides Iowa that would be key to a Harris turnaround, will be spared any cutbacks.
Harris faced a wave of skepticism over the summer as she flat-lined in polls and spent much of her time at big-dollar fundraisers and away from the campaign trail and news media. As she’s pivoted to Iowa — Harris plans to spend Thanksgiving there — her campaign appears to be headed in the opposite direction: She’s held fewer than 10 fundraisers over the month of October, a person familiar with her schedule told POLITICO.
That's deepened concerns among Democratic officials and some campaign aides in recent days about whether she’ll have the money to compete in early states where she’s being swamped by competitors with higher polling figures.
Further fanning these fears is what some aides described as a feeble digital fundraising effort to open the latest quarter. Rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg raised more than $1 million each within 24 hours of the October debate, with Klobuchar putting the number at $2 million in the days after their effective confrontations of Elizabeth Warren.
Undergirding Harris' weak fundraising performance and overspending is her increasingly fragile standing in Iowa polls and lack of a standout moment the past four months.
Kamala Harris to slash staff, restructure campaign as she hemorrhages cash
Her campaign is millions of dollars behind her top rivals.
www.politico.com
.
