DES MOINES – (CNN) Martin O’Malley’s super PAC — Generation Forward — laid off more than 30 field organizers on Friday, according to the group’s spokesman.
The move could be viewed as the PAC, whose fate is tied to a candidate who has failed to catch fire in Iowa, struggling to raise money. But Ron Boehmer, Generation Forward’s spokesman, said that is not the case.
“We always had this plan where our first goal was to get the governors’ name ID up in the field,” Boehmer said. “We are moving into the second phase of our campaign, which is going up with a digital and broadcast side. We intend to ramp up our field efforts later this fall after the debates.”
In the first six months of 2015, however, the group raised about $290,000, a paltry sum compared to the millions that other candidate’s super PACs raised.
Generation Forward, at one point, had around 50 full- and part-time organizers on the ground in Iowa, Boehmer said. But since Friday’s layoffs there are now at 13, including the group’s field director, nine field organizers and three other staff members.
The PAC used those organizers to not only meet with Iowans, but also to create buzz around O’Malley at the few Democratic events that drew all the 2016 Democrats to Iowa. At the Iowa Democratic Party Hall of Fame Dinner earlier this year, for example, the group had organizers outside the venue chanting about the former Maryland governor.
Boehmer said it is “just not accurate” that this decision was made because the super PAC is running out of money. Instead, he said, the downsizing is partly because O’Malley’s official campaign has staffed up their field operation and currently has 30 organizers on the ground.
“It is simply just us changing our focus,” he said. “We aren’t pulling out to go to another state.”
The group has plans for a “mid six-figure” ad buy in late September, early October, the spokesman said.
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