SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
NEWS AND VIEWS
CHANGES IN SANDERS' CAMPAIGN TEAMS IN SEVERAL
STATES -- TWO ARTICLES
Sanders campaign
overhauls New Hampshire team: report
BY JUSTINE
COLEMAN - 09/15/19 05:19 PM EDT
Photograph --
Bernie Sanders answers a question
Democratic
presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
has reportedly overhauled operations in New Hampshire as the primary looms
about five months away.
Sanders has
swapped his New Hampshire state director
Joe Caiazzo with Shannon Jackson,
who ran the senator's reelection campaign last year, according to a report
from The New York Times. The shakeup
was reportedly announced to the staff in New Hampshire on Sunday.
"We’ve
built a great team in New Hampshire and are in a really strong position there.
The campaign is now building out our
operations to include Massachusetts and Maine state directors as we
increase our focus in Super Tuesday states," Faiz Shakir, Sanders's
campaign manager, said in a statement obtained by The Hill. "We are running a 50 state campaign,
taking no state or voter for granted and expanding our operations to secure
the Democratic nomination."
The campaign's
top officials have also been shuffled
recently. Former chief of staff Ari Rabin-Havt and former Communications
Director Arianna Jones were promoted to deputy campaign managers. A new senior
communications adviser will be hired, the Times reported.
The senator
considers the New Hampshire primary in particular to be very
important after he defeated then-opponent Hillary Clinton by
more than 22 percent in 2016.
A poll last week showed Sanders and
former Vice President Joe Biden in
a statistical
tie in New Hampshire. Sanders, along with
Sen. Elizabeth
Warren (D-Mass.), has been trailing Biden in national
polls.
New Hampshire is expected to be a tight race
between the three leading contenders.
Sanders expanded the
state's campaign offices and staff in July.
FOR MORE INTERNAL DETAIL ON THE
REORGANIZATION, SEE POLITICO BELOW.
Bernie Sanders
shakes up campaign leadership in New Hampshire
‘The people who helped Bernie win here last
time knew and felt intimately that something was very different and not for the
best,’ said a steering committee member
By TRENT SPINER and HOLLY OTTERBEIN
09/15/2019 06:00 PM EDT
Updated 09/15/2019 07:35 PM EDT
PHOTOGRAPH -- Sen.
Bernie Sanders' campaign shake-up comes as some voters in New Hampshire weigh
Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a better option to beat President Donald Trump. |
Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo
MANCHESTER, N.H. —
Sen. Bernie Sanders has replaced the New Hampshire state director of his
presidential campaign after growing indignation from his fiercest supporters
that their concerns about losing the first-in-the-nation primary states were
being ignored.
More than 50
members from Sanders’ state steering committee applauded on Sunday afternoon
when they heard that Joe Caiazzo had been reassigned to Massachusetts,
according to those in the room. The news was delivered by the new state
director, Shannon Jackson, who ran Sanders’ Senate reelection in 2018.
“The people who
helped Bernie win here last time knew and felt intimately that something was
very different and not for the best,” said a steering committee member who was
at the meeting. “We know our state, we know our counties and we see what other
campaigns on the ground are doing. We weren’t happy with what we were seeing.”
The shake-up comes
as some progressive voters in New Hampshire weigh Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a
better option to beat President Donald Trump. At a Democratic convention here
just over a week ago, a noticeable number of state delegates who voted for
Sanders in 2016 said they had
moved their support to Warren.
Even members of the Sanders steering committee — his most diehard supporters —
said they were eyeing Warren.
Polling in the
state shows an extremely close race, with Sanders at 22 percent, former Vice
President Joe Biden at 21.5 percent and Warren at 19.3 percent, according to
the Real Clear Politics average of surveys.
A Sanders adviser
suggested another reason for Caiazzo’s shift to Massachusetts, which is
Warren’s home state.
Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All plan would eliminate
private insurance.
See where he stands on all the issues »
See where he stands on all the issues »
“Given Sen.
Warren’s favorables in Massachusetts, there’s a tremendous opportunity for
competitors there,” the adviser said. “Coupled with the fact [that]
Massachusetts has a large number of delegates, it’s important to contest the
commonwealth vigorously. Campaigns that don’t are making a mistake.”
The change is one
of several staff shake-ups in recent weeks. The Sanders campaign also parted
ways with senior adviser Kurt Ehrenberg, a well-respected local grassroots
activist who was with Sanders from the start.
“From the beginning
there was a fundamental disagreement about how to run a successful primary
campaign in New Hampshire,” Ehrenberg said. “There was a strong disagreement.”
Ehrenberg was a
driving force behind Sanders’ introduction to New Hampshire, helping him land
major speaking engagements to union groups for almost a decade. He served as New
Hampshire state director in Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders beat
Hillary Clinton by 22 points that year, helping to launch a nearly five-month
nationwide primary battle.
Ben Collings also
began working as the Maine state director for the Sanders campaign last week. A
Sanders aide said that state directors or lead staff had recently been added in
Oklahoma, Colorado and Minnesota, as well as Massachusetts. And some senior
staff have been asked to move to the early caucus and primary states.
Additionally, Mike
Casca, Sanders’ rapid response-director in 2016, was hired as a senior
communications adviser for Sanders. Ari Rabin-Havt and Arianna Jones were
promoted to deputy campaign managers.
The hires and staff
shifts are aimed at boosting Sanders' team in the early states as well as those
that will hold their presidential primaries on Super Tuesday, his campaign
said. Massachusetts is one of those states.
Sanders’ campaign
manager, Faiz Shakir, said on Sunday that things were going well in New
Hampshire.
“We feel really
good about the situation in New Hampshire and where we find ourselves,” Shakir
said. “The campaign has a strong volunteer operation in that state, great
staff, and the turnout of events with Bernie has been particularly strong as of
late as well. So we feel very good about where we find ourselves in New
Hampshire.
“Now we’re trying
to think around the corner and see where the next challenges are going to lay
and put ourselves in a position to secure the nomination, and we’re making
staff moves and hires in accordance with that.”
Sanders’ allies,
however, said the campaign was failing the basics: Listen to your supporters
and treat them with respect. At the meeting on Sunday, some drove several hours
from northern New Hampshire to express their concerns.
“The main issue has
been disrespect and a squandering of the campaign base in 2016,” a steering
committee member said. “These are the people who are true believers Bernie
Sanders would be a great president.”
All of the
committee members interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of
retribution from the campaign. They said the campaign planned to announce the
staffing changes on Monday.
“People felt
disaffected, like, ‘My God, how could they be doing this?’” another member
said. “They said our metrics have been pretty good. But it just seems like
something is off.”
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