The Hickenlooper campaign already faced a steep climb to qualify for the fall debates. | Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo 2020 Elections Hickenlooper finance director flees to Beto

The national finance director for John Hickenlooper’s presidential campaign is departing and joining rival Beto O’Rourke’s effort, O’Rourke’s campaign told POLITICO on Monday.

The aide, Dan Sorenson, is leaving the former two-term Colorado governor the day after the deadline for 2nd-quarter fundraising and after last week’s Democratic debate — an ominous sign for a presidential bid that has struggled to gain traction.


“We wish him the best with his new opportunity,” Lauren Hitt, Hickenlooper’s communications director, told POLITICO in a text message.

The Hickenlooper campaign already faced a steep climb to qualify for the fall debates, which require 130,000 donors and reaching 2 percent in four qualifying polls. Even if he ultimately withdraws from the race to challenge Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado — as some party leaders had long hoped he would — there is now a crowded field of Democrats already running that he would have to defeat.

“We’re thrilled to have Dan join our team to bring more supporters into this campaign and ensure Beto’s message of building a new kind of politics where no American is left behind can reach voters across the country,” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, O’Rourke‘s campaign manager.

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Hickenlooper raised a little more than $2 million in the first quarter of the year after entering the race in March. Initially equivocating on the question of whether he was a capitalist, Hickenlooper has recently fashioned himself as the anti-socialist candidate. Earlier this month, he gave a speech bashing the democratic socialism of his rival Sen. Bernie Sanders and earned himself a New Yorker profile this week headlined “John Hickenlooper’s War on Socialism.”

Sorenson joined Hickenlooper’s Giddy Up PAC in January and then the official presidential campaign in March. In the 2018 cycle, Sorenson was the deputy national finance director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

After Hickenlooper entered the race and raised more than $1 million in the first 48 hours, Sorenson said in a statement that “[t]he surge of support and enthusiasm for the governor is clear. … Gov. Hickenlooper’s record of bringing people together and delivering real results on health care, climate, and gun reform is resonating across the country.”