For Democrats?
It’s getting to be serious time….
The race IS down to a select few….
The single digit lower tier people are running out of gas….
Julián Castro’s campaign will fire its staff in New Hampshire and South Carolina, an official familiar with the campaign told POLITICO. The campaign notified the state teams on Monday and their final day will be next week.
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In order to appear on the next debate stage, Castro needs to hit 3 percent in four polls approved by the Democratic National Committee or 5 percent in DNC-approved early-state surveys. He hasn’t met the mark in a single poll but he does have until Nov. 13 to qualify for the Nov. 20 debate in Atlanta.
In its latest fundraising appeal Monday, the Castro campaign warned that the only Latino presidential candidate was in jeopardy of being left off the debate stage but said it was launching “IMMEDIATE digital ads” to reach voters and clinch the polls Castro needs to qualify for the debate.
Another fundraising email sent earlier Monday claimed Castro was “so close” to qualifying. Castro’s campaign raised $3.5 million over the last quarter but spent nearly $4 million over the same three months, ending September with just $670,000 cash on hand.
The campaign launched a desperate plea to raise $800,000 in the final 10 days of October, alerting supporters that Castro would be forced to end his campaign unless he could raise those funds by Halloween. The campaign announced Friday it met that goal.
Colin Strother, a Democratic strategist in Texas who once advised Castro, said the campaign spent too much money last quarter.
“That can’t happen again,” he warned. “This concept of running a national campaign is great in concept, but it’s bleeding them dry.”….
On Kamala Harris….
…Unmistakable signs of a floundering campaign are all around her: Harris’ town hall crowds are thinner and more tepid than they once were. Applause lines are scarcer. Network embeds who have followed her for months are plotting their next moves. Inside her campaign, staff morale sinks lower with each new poll. Aides sometimes talk about the campaign in the past tense before catching themselves. Unrest over the choices made by top campaign leadership has grown. Some Harris staffers felt blindsided by a decision to lay off field organizers in New Hampshire when they previously were led to believe that they could be redeployed to Iowa…
upper image…abcnews.go.com
lower image…thehill.com
Harris campaign update….
Not Good….
…Aides describe a bleak environment in which workers have started to openly question the judgment of managers after seeing colleagues marched out the door. During a recent meeting, aides pressed Rodriguez and Maya Harris for answers about campaign strategy. At one point during the more than two-hour discussion, Maya Harris herself turned to Rodriguez and challenged him in front of about 20 staffers, and several more listening in by phone. Rodriguez seemed unprepared for the exchange, according to people present. They walked out with little consensus about how to prioritize upcoming events and strategy around advertising….
More…
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Julián Castro on Thursday doubled down on the notion that the first nominating states on the primary calendar should reflect the nation’s diversity, firing back at the state party chairs who defended Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status.
Castro reignited a debate this week over Iowa and New Hampshire’s coveted place on the primary calendar in a Sunday interview on MSNBC, when he suggested reordering the Democratic primary voting schedule by allowing more diverse states to vote first….
More…
(I happen to wholeheartedly agree with Castro…But it’s the way it is, at least this time…)