Harris Lays Off Dozens of Campaign Staffers Amid Cash Struggles
Senator Kamala Harris is reportedly slashing her campaign staff and shifting her campaign strategy to focus almost solely on Iowa as her presidential bid struggles to remain afloat both financially and in the polls.
Dozens of aides will be laid off at the California senator’s campaign headquarters in Baltimore, and others will be transferred to Iowa ahead of February’s first-in-the-nation caucuses as the campaign upends its strategy, Politico reported.
Harris’s campaign manager, Juan Rodriguez, will see his $10,000 a month salary diminished, and other consultants will see their pay cut as well. Part of the campaign’s new strategy involves conserving enough funds for a seven-figure media buy just before the Iowa caucuses.
“From the beginning of this campaign, Kamala Harris and this team set out with one goal — to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump in 2020. This requires us to make difficult strategic decisions and make clear priorities, not threaten to drop out or deploy gimmicks,” Rodriguez wrote in a memo.
Harris’s campaign has floundered since a relatively strong launch on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Harris is currently at about 4.9 percent support and in fifth place among Democratic primary candidates nationally, according to RealClearPolitics poll average. In Iowa, she is at 2.7 percent support.
