Bernie Sanders to Lay Off Hundreds of Staff

Bernie Sanders’ campaign has begun to lay off hundreds of field staff in the wake of his major losses in four Atlantic states yesterday.

It is the first time the Sanders campaign has laid off large numbers of staff, and Wednesday’s move is a signal that the Vermont Senator is beginning to scale back his campaign in the weeks before the Democratic convention.

“We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around the country,” Sanders told the New York Times in an interview. “We don’t need people right now in Connecticut. That election is over. We don’t need them in Maryland. So what we are going to do is allocate our resources to the 14 contests that remain, and that means that we are going to be cutting back on staff.”

Sanders told the Times that “hundreds” of campaign workers would be affected by the layoffs. A campaign spokesman confirmed the staff changes. “We will continue to have a strong and dedicated staff of more than 300 workers who are going to help us win in California and other contests still to come,” said communications director Michael Briggs.

Sanders’ chances at winning the nomination are increasingly slim, and he has done little to prepare his staff or organizing operations for a general election against a Republican. The Vermont Senator has committed, however, to fighting for delegates in contests before the election, where he will seek to exert as much leverage as he can over the Democratic Party’s platform.