Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s senior team urged him last month to withdraw from the presidential race gracefully and run for Colorado’s Senate seat or pursue other opportunities, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO.
The source said that the campaign only has about 13,000 donors, making it almost impossible to qualify for the next round of presidential debates in the fall. The campaign also only raised just over $1 million in the second quarter — about what he raised in the first 48 hours of his candidacy — and will likely run out of money completely in about a month.
At least five staffers have left or are leaving Hickenlooper’s struggling operation, including his campaign manager, communications director, digital director and finance director. Hickenlooper named a new campaign manager on Monday night.
Hickenlooper publicly blamed his former staff Tuesday for his failure to gain traction in the crowded Democratic primary.
“We thought it was time to make a change,” he told MSNBC’s Craig Melvin. “You know, these campaigns are long, hard campaigns and you don’t always get it right with the first team.”
But a source familiar with the situation disputed the governor’s characterization, saying he is lashing out at the political professionals around him and surrounding himself with Colorado loyalists rather than confronting reality.
The Hickenlooper campaign declined to comment.
In an email to supporters Monday, Hickenlooper said, “Thanks to this team, we crossed the finish line of last night’s June fundraising sprint in great shape.”
Asked about his fundraising in the interview with MSNBC, however, Hickenlooper conceded “we certainly haven’t raised $24 million,” a reference to second-quarter sums reported by the campaigns of South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“I’m not going to get into it until we pull the numbers together,” he added. “But the bottom line is for a small campaign like us … it’s harder to raise money because we’re not promising free health care or, you know, to forgive free tuition for everyone, forgive student debt.”
Lauren Hitt, Hickenlooper’s outgoing communications director, told POLITICO on Monday that campaign manager Brad Komar and finance director Dan Sorenson are no longer with the campaign.
“I will also be transitioning out over the next few weeks,” she said.
ABC News later reported that digital director John Schueler and New Hampshire political director Nolan Varee are also leaving the campaign.
Sorenson has joined Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, and Hickenlooper named M.E. Smith his new campaign manager Monday night.
Hickenlooper met the polling requirement to qualify for last week’s debate and the upcoming debate in July. But his prospects for making the fall debates — candidates must have 130,000 donors and hit 2 percent in four qualifying polls — were dicier. The latest CNN poll released Monday shows Hickenlooper with just 1 percent support.
With two dozen candidates running, Hickenlooper has struggled to break out from the bottom of the pack. He spoke for just five minutes in Thursday’s debate, only getting more airtime than political outsiders Andrew Yang and Marianne Williamson and California Rep. Eric Swalwell.
And Hickenlooper has so far resisted calls to run for Senate, despite appeals from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who chairs Senate Democrats’ campaign arm. If he were to change his mind and run to challenge Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, he would now face another crowded primary.
But Hickenlooper insists he won’t give up on running for president.
“You never quit,” he said in the MSNBC interview, echoing lessons his mother taught him. “You can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control how you respond. And her big push was, you know, you never quit. You just keeping trying other things until you make it work.”
Quint Forgey contributed to this report.
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