Tipsheet

Uh Oh: Sanders Plans To Let Go Hundreds Of Campaign Workers

Well, all good things come to an end. And if you’re in the Bernie Sanders camp, that day could be coming. After a brutal thrashing in Tuesday’s primaries, the self-described Democratic socialist told The New York Times that he plans on letting go hundreds of campaign workers prior to making a last stand in California. His campaign says they plan to go all the way to Philadelphia:

Senator Bernie Sanders is planning to lay off “hundreds” of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning California, he said in an interview Wednesday.

The Vermont senator revealed the changes a day after losing four of the five states that voted Tuesday and falling further behind Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Despite the changes, Mr. Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party’s summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved.

“We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around country,” Mr. Sanders said in the interview. “We don’t need people right now in Connecticut. That election is over. We don’t need them in Maryland. So what we are going to do is allocate our resources to the 14 contests that remain, and that means that we are going to be cutting back on staff.”

[…]

Mr. Sanders said he planned to move a number of staff members to California, where he hoped to hold rallies for “hundreds of thousands” of people in cities across that state.

“California will have the most staff,” Mr. Sanders said. “Symbolically and in terms of delegates, if we can win the largest state in this country, that will send a real message to the American people and to the delegates that this is a campaign that is moving in the direction it should.”

So, he may be shifting to California, but the delegate math seems almost impossible to overcome at this point.