Democratic Presidential Candidate Elizabeth Warren To Open Campaign Field Office In Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS/AP) — Elizabeth Warren's campaign is moving to become the first in the Democratic presidential primary to hire field staff and open field offices in Pennsylvania, early moves in a late primary state that could become an important prize if the nominee remains in doubt past March. Warren's campaign said it has hired a Pennsylvania campaign strategist to start next week and will bring on organizing staff and open a field office in Philadelphia in the coming weeks.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney endorsed Warren for president in October.
Democratic strategists in the state characterized the moves as aggressive, considering that top field staff from the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama primary race in 2008 recall getting hired no earlier than February or March.
They also saw the moves as the Massachusetts senator challenging former Vice President Joe Biden on friendly territory and an effort to narrow Biden's built-in advantages in the state.
"People recognize that he starts off from a strong position here in Pennsylvania," said Mike Mikus, a Pittsburgh-based Democratic campaign strategist who is not affiliated with a presidential campaign.
Biden has his campaign headquarters in Philadelphia and deep political inroads in Pennsylvania after living for decades just across the border in Wilmington, Delaware, as that state's longtime senator.
Biden, who spent part of his boyhood in Scranton, used Pennsylvania as a backdrop to announce the start of his campaign. He has the endorsement of several of the state's members of Congress, including Sen. Bob Casey. He is a regular at Pittsburgh's Labor Day parade and he has campaigned for many Democratic candidates over the years.
"The list is long," Mikus said.
The nation's fifth-most populous state, Pennsylvania has the fifth-most delegates in the Democratic primary. It's primary is April 28, the same day as New York's Democratic primary, six weeks after primaries in Florida and Illinois and eight weeks after primaries in California and Texas.
The Warren campaign said it hired Anne Wakabayashi, the chair of Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's Commission on LGBTQ Affairs who is a veteran of Emerge Pennsylvania and the state Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.
Warren may have to make up ground on other candidates in Pennsylvania, as well.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has made several visits to the state this year and built a volunteer network in his first campaign in 2016.
The campaign of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, meanwhile, is running TV ads in the Philadelphia market.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
