Warren could find herself in a cash squeeze later this year unless she can ramp up her anemic fundraising.

Elizabeth Warren has been getting a lot of good press lately as she rolls out a series of dramatic proposals to fundamentally change the society she views as rigged.

These proposals, far grander than anything even Obama proposed, get her into the news cycles, but it’s not clear that it’s caused more than a minor bounce in her popularity.

Despite headlines proclaiming Warren is gaining ground, staging a comeback, persisting, and breaking through, her poll numbers still are single digits and just a hair higher than Kamala Harris and not much higher than Mayor Pete.

Warren has challenges beyond polling. As mentioned the other day, she just can’t seem to escape her attempt to rig her career by falsely claiming to be Native American for employment purposes.

And now there’s another challenge, Warren’s campaign workers have voted to unionize. CNBC reports:

A majority of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 campaign staff has said it wants union representation. Nonmanagement campaign employees authorized the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2320 to represent them in negotiations with campaign leadership, according to Steven Soule, the local’s business manager. “We look to move to the table to come to a bargaining agreement that provides pay and benefits and working conditions that are the best in the nation,” Soule said…. If the effort is recognized, Warren’s campaign could be the third presidential campaign in history to unionize. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign employees became the first to secure a union contract when they did so last month. Also last month, Democratic contender Julian Castro’s staff of several dozen unanimously joined the Campaign Workers Guild.

According to the union, the Warren campaign has agreed:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign has agreed to let its staff unionize, according to a New Hampshire branch of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers…. “We began the process about two months ago to engage with them and to encourage them to become members,” Steve Soule, business manager for IBEW Local 2320, based in Manchester, N.H., told the Washington Examiner. “Once we had a simple majority [signed up], we approached the Warren campaign and received recognition.” … The Warren campaign did not immediately confirm that IBEW Local 2320 would represent its staff. A campaign spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

It would have been politically untenable for Warren’s campaign to fight unionization of its campaign staff. But unlike Bernie, who has a fundraising juggernaut, Warren has struggled in fundraising.

As of last quarter, she was burning through all the cash she could raise, and had to fall back on a $10 million transfer from her Senate campaign account to create a reserve for the primaries.

Warren’s campaign strategy was to hire aggressively and build a large campaign staff earlier than anyone else. It’s paying off in terms of her ability to generate publicity, but if she can’t ramp up fundraising and she has to pay union wages to staff, Warren may be caught in a cash squeeze.

That $10 million Senate account infusion could dissipate pretty quickly just as the primaries and caucuses approach early next year.



