Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Iowa political director is no longer with the campaign, it was reported Wednesday, indicating further friction within the Sanders campaign.
Jess Mazour, who served as the Sanders campaign’s Iowa political director since March, is no longer with the campaign, according to a report from the Washington Post. One anonymous campaign official confirmed the campaign’s decision to remove Mazour and told the Post that the campaign has not yet filled her post.
“We’ll continue to make moves that we feel best position this campaign to win,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir told the Post.
Details on the internal shakeup are scarce but follow reports of internal panic within the Sanders campaign due to lackluster poll results and the recent loss of the Working Families Party endorsement, which went to rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
As Breitbart News reported:
The news coincides with the Sanders campaign’s shakeup in New Hampshire, moving presidential campaign operations state director Joe Caiazzo to Massachusetts and filling his New Hampshire post with Shannon Jackson, who served as a senior adviser during Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid and ran his 2018 Senate reelection campaign.
The move also followed rumblings of a Warren surge among Democrat insiders, including uncommitted delegates in the Granite State – many of whom are actively considering Warren. Additionally, a CBS/YouGov Tracker released last week spelled more trouble for the Sanders campaign, showing his ideological ally narrowly edging him – and Joe Biden (D) – out as the leader in the early primary state.
According to Politico, Sanders campaign staffers have been worried about the media’s coverage of the campaign’s internal moves and have been “calling members of their steering committee.”
Per Politico:
POLITICO spoke with nearly a dozen current and former Sanders advisers and allies, some of whom declined to discuss internal dynamics on the record because of fear of retribution. Since Sunday, campaign staffers have been calling members of their steering committee, asking them not to speak to the media because stories about the internal shakeup were published, according to three people who received the calls.
An Iowa poll released Wednesday spelled trouble for Sanders’ ground game in Iowa, showing his closest competitors – Joe Biden (D) and Warren – pulling away from the rest of the pack by double digits. Sanders fell to fourth place behind Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), garnering nine percent to Buttigieg’s 12 percent: