Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is losing her New Hampshire staff. As many as five staffers formally left Bachmann's campaign this week, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said Friday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose internal workings of the campaign. 
 
 Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart disputed reports of a staff shakeup, saying: "We have a great team in New Hampshire. We haven't been notified that anyone's left the campaign." 
 
 Still, Stewart said that she hadn't been able to reach the top New Hampshire staff to confirm they were still on board. She said she had reached some junior staffers who didn't say they were leaving. 
 
 Campaign finance reports show that Bachmann, who has fallen in polls and struggled to raise money, had five paid staff in New Hampshire as recently as late September. 
 
 The Republican presidential contender has largely ignored the first-in-the-nation primary state in recent months. She has been focused on Iowa and South Carolina, where her social conservative message has more appeal. 
 
 Bachmann has visited New Hampshire twice since launching her presidential campaign in June, and Stewart acknowledged a greater focus on Iowa, where Bachmann was born and where she won the GOP's presidential straw poll in August. 
 
 According to Bachmann aides, her Iowa staff consists of 11 paid members, including her national political director who relocated to Iowa this fall. The staff is among the larger teams in the leadoff caucus state. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report. 

 Rep. Michele Bachmann said she was surprised to hear that her entire New Hampshire campaign staff had quit en masse today, even though they “had not been paid for a month,” one of the departing staffers told ABC News. 
 
 Hours after initial reports of the mass exodus, Bachmann told Iowa Radio this afternoon that she was unaware that her staff had quit and said the reports were not true. 
 
 “That is a shocking story to me,” the Minnesota congresswoman said. “I don’t know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn’t true, so I don’t know if this is just a bad story that’s being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we’ve made calls and it’s certainly not true.” 
 
 But a staffer confirmed to ABC News that they had indeed quit. 
 
 All of the paid staff has already been offered jobs at competing campaigns, the staffer said. 
 
 One staffer, Southern New Hampshire Field Director Caroline Gigler, has already accepted a new job with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign, according to a report in the National Journal. 
 
 As first reported by ABC affiliate WMUR, the outgoing staff include: Gigler, Nicole Yurek, Tom Lukacz, Director of Operations Matt LeDuc and longtime Bachmann friend radio-host Jeff Chidester. 
 
 The departures are the latest in a string of high-profile exits from the campaign and do not bode well for a candidate who spent more money than she raised in the most recent quarter, according to FEC filings released last week. 
 
 Among those to leave so far were campaign manager Ed Rollins, deputy manager David Polyansky and pollster Ed Goeas. Soon after those departures, longtime adviser Andy Parish left the campaign to return to work in Bachmann’s Washington congressional office, and spokesman Doug Sachtleben quit. 
 
 In addition to a failure to pay staff salaries, some departing staffers had told the media that they were leaving because they were unconvinced that Bachmann was making a serious play to win New Hampshire. 
 
 When Rollins was still on board, much of the tension inside the camp concerned whether Bachmann should make a push only in Iowa, as former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee did in 2008, or to make a play for other early primary states like New Hampshire. 
 
 Bachmann last week, in an interview with the New York Times, said she would be focusing her efforts on Iowa. 
 
 Bachmann visited New Hampshire four times in 2011. She has made trips to Iowa nearly 20 times this year. 
 
 Late in the day, the Bachmann national campaign sent out a press release saying the campaign had not received word of of the New Hampshire departures, but confirming its focus would be on Iowa. 
 
 “We have a great team in New Hampshire and we have not been notified that anyone is leaving the campaign. We look forward to spending more time in the Granite State between now and the primary, but our campaign has emphasized that our main focus is the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa and we are continuing to build efforts there. While she will campaign in other states, Michele will spend the majority of her time in Iowa, doing what she does better than all the other candidates – retail politics – leading up to the all important caucuses,” read the release. 

 Bachmann’s New Hampshire Staff Quits, Latest in String of Campaign Departures 
 
 Rep. Michele Bachmann’s entire New Hampshire staff has quit her campaign, another dark omen for the GOP candidate who has lost several senior officials in recent weeks. 
 
 Five staffers, including Jeff Chidester, a longtime friend and conservative talk-radio host, have left the Minnesota congresswoman’s campaign. 
 
 The departing staff members also included Nicole Yurek, Tom Lukacz, director of operations Matt LeDuc and Southern New Hampshire Field Director Caroline Gigler, as first reported by ABC affiliate WMUR. 
 
 Gigler has already found a new job with Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign, according to a report in the National Journal. 
 
 The staffers said they quit the campaign because Bachmann had not paid sufficient attention to New Hampshire. 
 
 Bachmann visited New Hampshire last week for the GOP debate sponsored by Bloomberg News. It was her first visit to the Granite State since June. 
 
 Bachmann has seen a steady decline in her poll numbers since winning the Iowa Straw Poll in August. Many of Bachmann’s top aides have left her campaign in the weeks since the poll. 
 
 Among those to leave were campaign manager Ed Rollins, deputy manager David Polyansky and pollster Ed Goeas. Soon after, longtime adviser Andy Parish left the campaign to return to work in Bachmann’s Washington congressional office and spokesman Doug Sachtleben quit. 
 
 When Rollins was still on board, much of the tension inside the camp concerned whether Bachmann should make a push only in Iowa, as former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee did in 2008, or make a play for other early primary states such as New Hampshire. 
 
 Bachmann, in an interview with the New York Times, said last week she would focus her efforts on Iowa. 
 
 Bachmann has visited New Hampshire four times in 2011. She has been to Iowa nearly 20 times this year.
– All five of Michele Bachmann’s paid staffers in New Hampshire have quit, complaining that she hadn’t given enough attention to the state, reports ABC affiiliate WMUR. Bachmann visited New Hampshire for a debate last week, but before that hadn’t set foot in the Granite State since June. After the news emerged, Bachmann denied it on Iowa Radio: “That is a shocking story to me. I don’t know where that came from," she said. "We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn’t true, so I don’t know if this is just a bad story that’s being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we’ve made calls and it’s certainly not true.” ABC, however, is sticking by its story: "A staffer confirmed to ABC News that they had indeed quit." And the Associated Press is now backing up the ABC account: "Bachmann is losing her New Hampshire staff. As many as five staffers formally left Bachmann's campaign this week, two people with direct knowledge of the situation said." Bachmann has been losing senior aides ever since she won the Iowa straw poll.