Sen. Bernard Sanders is scaling back his presidential campaign and will soon lay off “hundreds” of campaign workers across the country.
In an interview with the New York Times, the Vermont senator said he plans to reallocate resources to California, where Democrats will vote June 7. Mr. Sanders has vowed to stay in the race through the California contest, despite having little realistic chance at overtaking Hillary Clinton and winning the party’s presidential nomination.
“We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around the country,” Mr. Sanders said. “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.”
The announcement comes a day after Mr. Sanders was beaten badly in Tuesday’s slate of Northeastern state primaries. Mrs. Clinton won Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Connecticut, while Mr. Sanders prevailed only in Rhode Island.
The senator didn’t say exactly how many people would let be go, but he confirmed it will be a significant number.
“It will be hundreds of staff members,” he told the New York Times. “We have had a very large staff, which we designed to deal with 50 states in this country. Forty of the states are now behind us.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.