Jacob Ogles
Millie Raphael has quit as Senate candidate Stanley Campbell’s Campaign Manager, sounding alarms about mismanagement of the campaign’s limited resources.
While Raphael issued a publicly optimistic statement about Campbell’s future as a candidate, a resignation letter obtained by Florida Politics shows she harbored deep concerns and frustration as the candidate ignored advice from her and veteran operatives.
“The lack of transparency, and the lack of a fundamental, consistent and hierarchical structure and defined roles for staff were major hindrances for me, for them, for our potential and for our morale,” the campaign memo reads.
The Campaign Manager sent her resignation on Monday to Campbell and his wife, Cheryl Campbell, Human Health and Services Assistant Secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration since March 2021.
Raphael signaled significant infighting within the campaign, and wrote that staff too often could ignore direction from her and others in leadership positions by going straight to the candidate.
“When I came aboard in January, I was offered the position of Campaign Manager. Seven months later, it has been my role in name only,” Raphael wrote.
“A campaign organizational structure with staff who are hired, supervised and reporting to me was never approved by you, and most importantly, my role as Campaign Manager was never expressly sanctioned with our staff. This, combined with a lack of onboarding policy, NDAs, signed contracts and of clearly delineated boundaries and job descriptions (which were provided to you in January), contributed to increasingly dysfunctional, and sometimes inappropriate and disrespectful meetings, encounters, and text chats.
“Try as I might, without your support, the staff who did not like something either ignored a directive or simply talked with you to get a different response. And talk they did, sometimes in ways that were ill-informed, gratuitous or provided misguided information or ugly gossip.”
Raphael’s resignation acknowledged “impressive wins,” most notably securing the endorsement of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest trade union federation. But she said that support may prove hollow, as the national organization will most likely direct its resources in presidential battleground states, and only ones with a strong union presence.
“AFL-CIO is a major endorsement and they will certainly be helpful on the ground, but unlike previous years, Florida is not in play,” she wrote.
“Their national leadership will not be sending droves of out-of-state workers to assist us with GOTV; they will only target Union households, and, by law, you cannot coordinate with them.”
Campbell, if elected, would be Florida’s first Black U.S. Senator. But Raphael suggested that the campaign thus far has relied too heavily on impressive leaders of Black voter outreach groups and not enough on reaching their constituencies. That’s especially notable as Raphael, years before working for Campbell, founded Progress For Florida with the express mission of improving minority voter outreach.
“If your plan is to turn out voters using church, HBCU, D9 (Divine 9) and Black Caucus membership, your strategy and messaging will need to be much better and wider heard and understood by these participants, not just their leaders,” Raphael wrote. “Of course, their reach in White communities won’t be sufficient.”
But Raphael’s chief concern appears to be that Campbell simply refused to take professional advice on fundamental campaign operations. She never was allowed to see a campaign budget, and said the campaign lacked a Finance Director. That, combined with Campbell’s reluctance to dedicate himself to call time, led to fundraising failures.
Second quarter fundraising reports show Campbell through June raised more than $81,000 in outside contributions. Meanwhile, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell through the same date raised more than $11.8 million.
Raphael lobbed some criticism at Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign, and suggested that the apparent Democratic fundraiser could still be vulnerable in a Primary against a well-organized opponent. But she said Campbell hasn’t capitalized on that.
“DMP has a limited ground-game, and it is in the Field that we had the opportunity to stealthily overcome her lead in the regions most critical for us,” Raphael wrote. “As of today, Duval, Leon and Broward, three strongholds for this campaign, lag in Vote-by-Mail turn in, and we have no operation in place to chase these or any other ballots. In fact, the team was instructed that the counting of votes no longer mattered and there would be no GOTV effort to speak of.”
Raphael signaled that U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the Republican incumbent likely awaiting in the General Election, shares none of Mucarsel-Powell’s vulnerabilities in November. With a lack of interest in driving funds or voters, Raphael voiced disinterest in relying on luck.
“I am still hopeful this campaign will be victorious, but if it is, it will be in spite of these major hindrances,” she wrote. “To be sure, they are hindrances that, if allowed to continue, will ensure this campaign’s ultimate defeat by a well-run and well-resourced opponent in the General.”
