Kamala Harris is just about toast. Her campaign is collapsing, she’s hemorrhaging cash, and she’s laying off staff. Now cop Kamala can go back to sleeping with powerful California Democrats to enhance her resume for 2024.
| Kamala Harris almost toast, to slash staff, hemorrhages cash |
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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 by POLITICO Wednesday, 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 own 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 are plans 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.