Kamala Harris lays off entire New Hampshire field team amid dozens of staff cuts
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is laying off staff and closing offices in New Hampshire as she has struggled to build momentum for her candidacy in recent months. Harris is cutting her entire field team in the state and closing field offices in Portsmouth, Manchester, and Keene, the campaign said. Her campaign had more than 20 staffers in the state. "We had to lay people off. Yes, we did. We had to lay people off," Harris said in Ankeny, Iowa, on Friday. "I am very sad about that. It was a very tough decision that we had to make, but frankly a necessary decision. I am all-in in Iowa. And I intend to win."
A campaign representative told CBS News that “a handful of staffers will run a scaled-down campaign out of the Manchester headquarters.”“Senator Harris and this team set out with one goal — to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump in 2020," Nate Evans, her campaign’s New Hampshire spokesman, said in a statement. "To do so, the campaign has made a strategic decision to realign resources and go all-in on Iowa, resulting in office closures and staff realignments and reductions in New Hampshire," he continued. "The campaign will continue to have a staff presence in New Hampshire but the focus is and will continue to be on Iowa."
The California senator also will not visit New Hampshire to file for the primaries in person, as her rivals, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders, did. It was reported earlier this week that Harris was cutting dozens of staffers from her headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, and shifting resources to Iowa as her campaign bleeds cash.
