“We had precinct captains who didn’t know how to run a caucus. And a few didn’t even show. We lost friggin’ people on the second ballot of voting in the caucus! Someone’s head had to roll,” said a top-level Biden campaign staffer.

But friends of Bogen, who did not return calls and messages seeking comment, said she was being scapegoated by a floundering campaign, adding that she had complained about its dysfunction, which she blamed on higher-ups.

“The Biden campaign is desperate to blame everyone for his problems in Iowa — the state party, Donald Trump, Adrienne — and that’s bullshit,” a friend, a Democrat who is not aligned with another candidate but did not want to discuss her separation from the campaign without her knowledge, said.

Ana Cruz, a Democratic political consultant and lobbyist from Florida, expressed a similar sentiment.

“Adrienne and I have worked closely together on recent campaign in Florida where her expertise and demeanor were invaluable to our success and the type of campaign that best represented our candidates values. I am incredibly disappointed that any campaign would lay complete blame on any one person. I am even more disappointed that those in positions above her have tried to make her the scapegoat of the Iowa debacle,” said Cruz. “This is character assassination. Plain and simple.”

Another friend said that Bogen wanted more time off for her April wedding and honeymoon than the cash-strapped campaign could afford.

In Iowa, some of the precinct tallies from election night showed Biden losing support after the first alignment, a sign of weak support or poorly trained precinct captains or both.

With 71 percent of caucus precincts reporting, Biden appears on track to finish in fourth place, behind Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Bogen’s departure is the first sign that the campaign is under pressure to address deficiencies after Biden’s poor Iowa showing. The partial numbers out of Iowa show him with just under 16 percent of the raw vote. That’s just three percentage points ahead of Amy Klobuchar, who surged in the last week of the campaign.

The preliminary caucus results show that Biden struggled to gain viability in counties across the state. That’s despite the former vice president’s high name recognition and the campaign’s focus on the state in the closing months before the caucuses.

Bogen last worked as the field director for the Florida gubernatorial campaign of former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, who lost in a crowded Democratic primary to Andrew Gillum.

