Biden Fires Staffer After Taking a 'Gut Punch'

Biden's campaign is reeling after Iowa caucuses
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 5, 2020 4:45 PM CST
Joe Biden: 'We Took a Gut Punch'
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event, Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, in Somersworth, N.H.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Joe Biden, fourth place in Iowa? The purported front-runner among Democratic candidates didn't deny his poor showing at Monday's caucuses: "I'm not going to sugarcoat it," he said Wednesday, per Politico. "We took a gut punch in Iowa." But the Democratic candidate still managed a little spin, saying "the whole process took a gut punch. But look this isn't the first time in my life I’ve been knocked down." Yet his supporters and staff are getting nervous as polls show a mixed bag of news, with Biden behind Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire and leading in Nevada. "We can't lose three straight like that," says a Biden adviser.

The New York Times looks behind the scenes at Biden's campaign and finds it fell short in a few ways—announcing his candidacy late on April 25 (after rivals had been on the ground for months), failing to excite crowds, and running a scattershot campaign in Iowa. "They're not embedding loyalty to the organization, he doesn't do groundwork," says Biden supporter Roxanna Moritz, who adds that the campaign was "not returning phone calls, no follow through. It's kind of sad because I really do think he is the right person." Now Politico reports that Biden's camp just fired Adrienne Bogen, who headed field operations. "We had precinct captains who didn’t know how to run a caucus. And a few didn’t even show," says a top Biden staffer. "Someone's head had to roll." (More Joe Biden 2020 stories.)

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