Colorado Politics

Elizabeth Warren beefs up Colorado presidential campaign staff

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign announced Tuesday that her 2020 presidential campaign has added three senior staffers to its team in Colorado — five weeks before the Super Tuesday state’s voters begin to receive primary ballots.

The Massachusetts Democrat, one of the four leading candidates according to national polls, has hired a senior strategist, organizing director and training director to augment staff that has been on the ground in Colorado since September, ahead of the state’s presidential primary March 3.

The Warren campaign also plans to open its third office in the state on Thursday in Boulder, adding to outposts in Denver and Colorado Spring that have been open since last month, the state campaign said.

“Organizing is at the heart of Elizabeth Warren’s fight for big, structural change in Colorado,” said PaaWee Rivera, the Warren campaign’s state director, in a statement. “Our talented team here in the Centennial State is an investment in meeting people where they are and building a grassroots movement to level the playing field for everyone.”

He said the new staffers will help build on a series of “barnstorming” organizing events the campaign has conducted in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Aurora, Denver, Boulder, Greeley and Fort Collins.

Jayson Sime, a yoga instructor and ultra-marathon runner who has been state director for America Votes in Colorado and Nevada, will serve as Warren’s senior strategist in Colorado, the campaign said.

Sime, who helped establish procedures for the Nevada caucus in 2008, previously managed a congressional race and worked for the Iowa and Nevada Democrats. He’s the founder of Right to Shine, a Denver-based training and coaching business, and is the author of “Self-Care Hacks: 50 Tips and Tricks To Maximize Your Performance, Well-Being, and Happiness.”

Veteran operative Ben Tobias, who ran 2018 gubernatorial candidate Cary Kennedy’s caucus effort, joins the Warren campaign as its Colorado organizing director.

Tobias was deputy field director for the Colorado Democratic Party in 2014, for then-U.S. Sen. Mark Udall’s unsuccessful bid for a second term, and managed the state’s largest door-to-door voter turnout operation in 2016 while working at Terra Strategies. He’s also served as a researcher for the Colorado Democrats and worked for voter-contact firm Landslide Political on more than a dozen Colorado campaigns over the last two years, the Warren campaign said.

Kyla Sabado, a military spouse whose husband is stationed at Fort Carson, will serve as Warren’s Colorado training director, her campaign said.

Sabado most recently worked on the campaigns opposing attempts to recall state Senate President Leroy Garcia of Pueblo and state Sen. Pete Lee of Colorado Springs. She also has national experience training candidates, union members and campaign staff in organizing and voter communications, the Warren campaign said.

Warren, one of 17 Democrats on the ballot in Colorado’s primary, has made campaign stops in Denver and Aurora and been endorsed by state Sens. Kerry Donovan, Faith Winter and Mike Foote, and state Reps. Dominique Jackson and Chris Kennedy.

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