Polls show Landrieu falling short of the 50 percent she needs to avoid a December runoff. Landrieu replaces campaign manager

In what appears to be a significant October campaign shakeup, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu is replacing her campaign manager and bringing on her former chief of staff as a senior adviser.

The Democrat has pushed Adam Sullivan out of the manager role and replaced him with Ryan Berni, who ran her brother Mitch’s reelection campaign as New Orleans mayor. Berni is a former aide to Clintonista and Louisianan James Carville.


Polls show Landrieu falling short of the 50 percent she needs to avoid a December runoff, and Republican Rep. Bill Cassidy has a slight lead in head-to-head matchups.

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“Like any of the Senator’s winning campaigns, we are tightening our senior strategy team and bringing on some of her long time advisers to help out during the last month of the race,” Landrieu spokesman Fabien Levy emailed POLITICO. “We know this will lead us to victory on November 4. Adam Sullivan remains as an advisor to the campaign.”

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans, which first reported the changes, wrote that aides would not say why Sullivan is being replaced, “other than to say she’s bringing in people she’s comfortable with and has relied on for previous campaigns.”

Former Landrieu chief of staff Norma Jane Sabiston, who worked on the three previous campaigns, is taking a leave from her consulting firm to work on the race as a senior adviser.

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Two other staffers for her official Senate office have taken leaves to move over to the campaign side: state director T. Bradley Keith and communications director Matthew Lehner.

Landrieu announced Sullivan’s hiring in June 2013.

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