Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is dramatically cutting her staff in New Hampshire, the state that holds the first primary in the race for the White House.
Harris campaign officials confirmed to Fox News on Friday that all field staffers in the state have left the campaign and that only a “handful” of staff remains. The added that three field offices – in Keene, Nashua, and Portsmouth — have been shuttered. They said the state headquarters – in Manchester – will remain open with a small staff.
The move comes two days after top national officials for the senator from California announced they were restructuring and redeploying staffers from their headquarters in Baltimore and some of the early-voting states to Iowa, which kicks off the primary and caucus presidential nominating calendar. The campaign has been hemorrhaging money, spending more than what was coming in.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris of California, at the New Hampshire Democratic Party convention, in Manchester, N.H. on Sept. 7
The Harris campaign also confirmed to Fox News that the candidate canceled next week’s two-day swing through New Hampshire, when Harris was scheduled to head to the State House in Concord and file in person to place her name on the primary ballot. The campaign said Harris will now file to place her name on the ballot by mail. White House contenders almost always show up in person to file.
In a statement, the campaign noted that “Senator Harris and this team set out with one goal — to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump in 2020. To do so, the campaign has made a strategic decision to realign resources to go all in on Iowa, resulting in office closures and staff realignments and reductions in New Hampshire.”
Harris told Fox News in February, during her first visit to the state since launching her campaign a month earlier, that “I intend to spend a lot of time here and I intend to compete for the votes here.”