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Sanders staffs up in Nevada for 2020

Megan Messerly
Megan Messerly
Election 2020IndyBlog
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U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is staffing up in Nevada as a parade of 2020 presidential candidates continues through the Silver State a little less than a year out from the first-in-the-West caucus.

Sarah Michelsen, who has spent the last seven years as executive director of the progressive coalition Arizona Wins, will helm Sanders’ Nevada operations as state director. At Arizona Wins, she was responsible for an independent expenditure field program that helped elect U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Michelsen will be joined by two operatives with previous Nevada experience. Peter Koltak, the former executive director of the Nevada Senate Democratic Caucus and most recently campaign manager for the Coalition to Defeat Question 3, will serve as Sanders’ senior adviser in the Silver State, and Bianca Recto, a former digital director and press secretary for U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, will serve as Nevada communications director.

The team builds on the Nevada experience that some of Sanders’ national campaign staffers have. Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir was a senior adviser to former U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, and two other members of Team Sanders — Josh Orton and Ari Rabin-Havt — hail from Reid’s office, too.

Other presidential candidates have already started staffing up in Nevada, including U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker. Several other campaigns — including Warren’s, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris’, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro — have national staffers with Nevada ties.

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