Kamala Harris’s Campaign is Dying on the Vine

According to Politico, sources inside the Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign say that a drastic “restructuring” is in progress as the California Democrat struggles to keep her momentum going amidst flagging donations, sinking polls, and waning enthusiasm.

Harris, who was once touted as a serious threat to win the Democratic nomination, has been unable to build much of a support base. Attractive as she was to moderate, establishment Democrats in the beginning, she has failed to catch fire in any way that presents a real challenge to the frontunners. Joe Biden hasn’t worried about Harris since the first debate, and it feels as though most of America has forgotten she’s even in the race. Does Harris’s “restructured” campaign have any hope of a resurgence, or is her campaign dying on the vine?

From Politico:

Kamala Harris is dramatically restructuring her campaign by redeploying staffers to Iowa and laying off dozens of aides at her Baltimore headquarters, according to campaign sources and a memo obtained Wednesday by POLITICO, as she struggles to resuscitate her beleaguered presidential bid.

The moves come as Harris is hemorrhaging cash and in danger of lacking the resources to mount a competitive bid against better-funded rivals in Iowa. The overhaul will touch nearly every facet of Harris’ operation, with layoffs or re-deployments coming at headquarters, as well as in New Hampshire, Nevada and her home state of California, a Super Tuesday prize that her advisers once viewed as a big asset.

Campaign Manager Juan Rodriguez will cut his salary, according to the memo, which was just over $10,000 a month in the third quarter of the year. Harris’ consultants will also have their payments reduced and the campaign plans to trim and renegotiate other contracts to slash overhead. Along with getting back in the black, a big motivation behind the cost-cutting decisions is a plan to stash enough resources for a seven-figure media buy in the weeks before the Iowa caucus.

But it’s not clear if a last-minute media buy is going to save this sinking ship. Recent polls not only have her trailing Pete Buttigieg but even Tulsi Gabbard, the renegade Democrat whose popularity with the right may actually outweigh her support on the left. Hell, Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur whose entire campaign is built around the singular idea of universal basic income, is breathing down Harris’s neck in the polls. That’s not a situation that can be salvaged by a few weeks of commercials.