KEENE, N.H. — Two weeks after Sen. Bernie Sanders shuffled his top New Hampshire campaign staff in September in an effort to revamp his Granite State bid, the Vermont senator suffered a heart attack that left many wondering if his presidential bid was doomed.
But since Sanders’ return to the trail, his New Hampshire campaign has found new life, on the ground and in the polls, almost doubling its staff from 45 in mid-summer to 90 today and turning a 12 point deficit in September polls into a 3 point lead over his top challengers heading into the home stretch.
In July, in the midst of a heatwave across New England, Joe Caiazzo, then Sanders’ New Hampshire director, played down the importance of winning the key primary contest that launched the Vermont senator’s challenge to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“Do we have to win here? No. Do we have to win anywhere? No,” Caiazzo told VTDigger about Sanders’ plan in New Hampshire and the path to the Democratic nomination this cycle.
Two months later, in mid-September, Caiazzo was moved out of New Hampshire to head up the less crucial Massachusetts campaign, and Shannon Jackson, a longtime Sanders confidante, took over the top job in the first-in-the-nation-primary state.
Jackson’s message is now markedly different than his predecessor’s. “We are in it to win it,” he said in a recent interview.
In the eight months since Sanders announced he was running for president, his campaign has been pouring its impressive stocks of cash into all the early primary states.
In California, the Vermont senator has spent $836,706 on salaries, political consulting and access to voter information, $686,271 in Iowa, $659,981 in South Carolina, $608,792 in Nevada and $525,971 in New Hampshire, according to campaign finance data.
Sanders has also spent $450,542 in Vermont, which Jackson says is largely used as auxiliary for the New Hampshire campaign — bringing total spending on the primary close to $1 million.
New Hampshire’s primary will be held on Feb. 11, a week after the equally important Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3.
While Sanders and his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, had repeatedly stressed the importance of winning New Hampshire, Caiazzo had been looking at the large field of Democratic candidates and strategizing around making sure they won as many delegates as possible — a move straight out of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign playbook.
The staff shakeup came after Sanders’ New Hampshire steering committee — a group of die-hard supporters who have been organizing nonstop since 2015 — voiced their discontent with Caiazzo’s leadership and were concerned Sanders could lose the state, Politico reported.
In 2016, Sanders won New Hampshire handily, taking more than 60% of the vote. This election cycle, however, he has remained bunched at the top with former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Days after the staff restructuring was announced, a Monmouth University poll on the New Hampshire race had Sanders trailing Warren and Biden by more than 12 points.
Two weeks after Jackson relieved Caiazzo of his duties, the campaign was thrown into uncertainty when Sanders suffered a heart attack on Oct. 1, leaving morale among campaign staff at a low point.
But since Sanders has returned to the campaign trail, gaining high-profile progressive endorsements and boosts in both national and statewide polls, campaign staff in New Hampshire have been reenergized.
A late October CNN/University of New Hampshire poll now has Sanders leading the Democratic field in the Granite State with 21% with Warren just behind him at 18% and Biden at 15%.
“It’s like we have new life,” said Jackson the week before Sanders would make his first return to New Hampshire since the heart attack.
That feeling was evident on Oct. 30, when Sanders was greeted to cheers from hundreds of people packed into an auditorium on the Keene State College campus.
“Bernie or bust, baby,” one female super-fan, brandishing campaign signs, chanted as she patrolled a stream of possible voters who were waiting to enter the event.
Quinton Sneed-Lott, a student at Keene State College, said he’s not sure how he will vote, but that Sanders has his attention, even more so now he has come back from a heart attack.
“It goes to show his resilience,” Sneed-Lott said. “A lot of people would not have gone on with their candidacy, but he is putting his health on the line for the betterment of our country.”
On Friday, after Sanders officially filed his candidacy with the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office, the campaign announced the state staff now numbers 90 across 13 offices. In July, Sanders had a full-time team of 45 working in the state.
The decision by Sanders to add staff to his state campaign comes as other candidates are shutting down New Hampshire operations.
California Sen. Kamala Harris closed her Granite State offices as she has decided to go all in on Iowa and Julian Castro, the secretary of housing under former President Barack Obama, also made plans to fire his New Hampshire staff, according to Politico.
“We have been steadily building the ground game needed to win in New Hampshire,” Jackson said in a written statement. “Granite Staters expect candidates to work hard and earn their votes, and that’s exactly what we are doing,”
