Hillary Clinton is considering shaking up her campaign staff after winning the Iowa caucuses by just a hair’s breadth and polling well behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for the New Hampshire primary, Politico reported Monday.
The six anonymous sources Politico spoke with said that Clinton would be more likely to add new staff members than fire any senior staffers outright in the event of a shake-up. The news site reported that Clinton’s campaign manager, Robbie Mook, has already seen his role expanded from primary-and-caucus state ground game management to messaging, too.
Clinton addressed the Politico report in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow set to air Monday night.
“I have no idea what they’re talking about or who they are talking to,” she said in a preview of the interview sent to TPM. “We’re going to take stock but it’s going to be the campaign that I’ve got. I’m very confident in the people that I have. I’m very committed to them; they’re committed to doing the best we can.”
Chatter about further staffing changes evoke the specter of Clinton’s dysfunctional 2008 presidential campaign, when she replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams after losing several caucuses and primaries to then-Sen. Barack Obama.
The Clinton camp is eager to avoid another public breakup this time around.
As one anonymous Democratic official told Politico: “The Clintons are not happy, and have been letting all of us know that. The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary – but also for the general election too… There’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.”
David Axelrod, the chief strategist for both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, sent out a tweet Monday afternoon that obliquely referenced the Politico report and suggested that Clinton herself may be to blame for the staffing issues.
When the exact same problems crop up in separate campaigns, with different staff, at what point do the principals say, “Hey, maybe it’s US?”
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) February 8, 2016
Clinton is currently polling behind her Democratic opponent in the Granite State. According to TPM’s Polltracker Average, Sanders leads Clinton 55 to 38.8 ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
This post has been updated.
