New Buttigieg campaign memo outlines strategy for Super Tuesday and beyond

Bloomberg surrogates preview debate tactics against Sanders

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Hours ahead of the Democratic debate in South Carolina, surrogates for former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg held a press conference targeting Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and the need for him to be “vetted” now that he’s a “front-runner.”

Rep. Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., Columbia, S.C. Mayor Steve Benjamin, Augusta, Ga. Mayor Hardie Davis, former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and former Flint, Mich. Mayor Karen Weaver — all elected officials of color — slammed Sanders for his record, particularly on gun control.

“We need a candidate who’s fully vetted that can go on to defeat Donald Trump. We don’t believe that Senator Sanders has passed this test,” said Benjamin.

All of the speakers at the press conference hit Sanders’ multiple votes against the Brady bill, legislation which required a waiting period for gun purchases and background checks.

“No one, not any of them, has a perfect record when it comes to the issues that are important to the black community,” Meeks said. “Too often Bernie Sanders has been on the wrong side of history, missing in action or unable to make progress on virtually every issue for black voters.”

Meeks noted that while Bloomberg has apologized for his past mistakes on policies such as stop and frisk, Sanders “has not been clear” in where he has failed on issues like gun reform.

“While we welcome that Bernie Sanders has changed his position on some things, he has strongly criticized other Democratic candidates for their previous policies, even after they have acknowledged they were wrong,” Meeks added.

The campaign surrogates also promised a “180 degree shift” in Bloomberg’s debate performances. 

“Number one, I think that the first half of the debate when you had over sixty people attacking him, it was a poor response,” Meeks said on Bloomberg’s first debate performance. “He’s gotta defend himself. I think he did better in the second half of the debate. And I think that you’ll see a 180 degree shift tonight.”

How previous Dems won South Carolina and the nomination

WASHINGTON — As 2020 candidates prepare for the South Carolina Democratic primary Saturday, the focus is on black voters, a growing base for the party in the Palmetto State and a key voting bloc for eventual party nominees in past elections. The demographic makes up about two-thirds of the state’s Democratic electorate. 

Every Democratic winner in South Carolina’s primary since 1992 has ultimately become the party’s nominee except for John Edwards. Though Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders leads the 2020 field in delegates after first and second place finishes in multiple early states, he’ll likely need to overcome his past challenges in South Carolina to clear his path to the nomination.

His 2016 primary finish was disappointing in South Carolina, especially among black voters. Hillary Clinton carried 74 percent of the state with Sanders trailing nearly 50 percentage points behind her, according to exit polls.

The racial breakdown between the two candidates’ supporters in the state was starkly different. Among Clinton voters in the primary, 71 percent identified as black while 64 percent of Sanders’ backers identified as white.

2008 primary exit polls show that Barack Obama won over about double the vote share of Clinton, including 80 percent of the black vote but less than one-fourth of white voters in the Palmetto State. 

General election exit polls from 2004 show that blacks only made up about 30 percent of voters but with a vast majority — 85 percent — supporting John Kerry.

Going into tonight’s debate in South Carolina, Joe Biden leads among likely Democratic voters and African-Americans in the state in the latest NBC News/Marist poll out Monday. This comes despite his weak performances in the early states thus far.

Sanders only trails Biden by 4 points — 23 to 27 percent support respectively — with likely Democratic voters in South Carolina. In the black subset of this group, the senator is 15 points behind Biden with only 20 percent support.

Billionaire entrepreneur Tom Steyer comes in a close third with 19 percent from black voters.

The poll was conducted before the Nevada caucuses, a heavily diverse state that Sanders won by more than a two-to-one margin. 

The seven candidates on the ballot and still in the race will compete for 54 pledged delegates to the National Democratic Convention, the greatest number of delegates up for grabs in the campaign cycle so far. Mike Bloomberg will not be on the ballot and South Carolina cancelled its Republican primary.

Biden clinches support from all House Dems from N.C.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — In the race to Super Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden has an advantage at least when it comes down to Congressional endorsements across the fourteen states voting next week. On Tuesday, Biden clinched all three Democratic House members from North Carolina when Rep. David price joined fellow N.C. Reps. G.K. Butterfield and Alma Adams. 

And that endorsement comes as Biden tries to indicate he has the best chance to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary contest. 

Biden has a total of 48 Congressional endorsers from both the House and the Senate, according to NBC News’ count, including 20 from Super Tuesday states alone making him the most endorsed Democratic presidential candidate from Congress. NBC News has also learned that South Carolina heavyweight House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is expected to endorse Biden on Wednesday, bringing his total count of Congressional endorsers to 49.

Biden has also received the most endorsements from House Democrats who flipped their Congressional seats during the 2018 blue wave election. Many of these “front-line” Democrats represent states like Iowa and Texas, and say they need a more moderate candidate like Biden to keep their seats in 2020. Price echoed that in his endorsement.

“This is a critical time in the nominating process. I have worked with many of the candidates directly and have listened carefully to their ideas. I respect the commitment that each has brought to the race and I will gladly support whomever our party nominates. However, I believe Joe Biden is the best candidate to unite our party and our nation in a way that ensures Democratic control of not only the White House, but also the House and Senate,” Price said in a statement. 

While the impact of endorsements on voters seems to have faded, the Biden campaign says that their influence is critical since their networks bring in the resources and support needed to sustain their campaign operation in Super Tuesday states. Endorsers have often gone on bus tours for Biden in numerous early primary states while Biden was competing elsewhere.

Biden endorsers in Super Tuesday states may also become necessary for the campaign as they have yet to start airing ads in Super Tuesday states. 

Catholic support for Trump is up but bloc favors 2020 Dems, according to new survey

WASHINGTON — A new online poll released Monday finds that Catholic support for President Trump has increased since the end of 2019 despite impeachment, but that Trump loses in head-to-head match-ups against top Democratic challengers among these Catholic voters. 

The latest Eternal World Television Network/RealClear Opinion Research poll, which surveyed 1,521 registered self-identified Catholic voters in the United States, discovered that Joe Biden is the dominant primary and general election candidate.

Among those in the bloc likely to vote in the Democratic primary, Joe Biden leads the pack with 29 percent support. Biden, who identifies as a Catholic, also beats Trump by the greatest amount among the Democratic candidates in a hypothetical general election face-off, garnering 51 percent support versus Trump’s 40 percent.

Within the primary, Biden is followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with 24 percent and Mike Bloomberg, who surged from seventh place to third place in Catholic support, up 15 points since November. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., follows the former New York City mayor, and Pete Buttigieg comes in last among the top contenders.

In head-to-heads with Trump, the places just about hold. Sanders leads Trump by 9 points, 50 percent to 41 percent. Bloomberg also beats Trump by 9 points, 48 versus 39 percent. Warren is next in line with a six-point advantage — 48 to 42 percent.

Buttigieg faces the narrowest gap of the competitive 2020 candidates in a contest with President Trump, only ahead by 4 points. 

Despite Trump’s weaker performances against potential Democratic rivals, the president’s overall approval rating did increase among registered Catholic voters surveyed. President Trump’s job approval among Catholics stands at 47 percent — less than half of the group though up from 44 percent in November.

The demographic was starkly divided on how they’ll vote in 2020. About one-third of Catholics said they will definitely vote for Trump in 2020 while slightly more reported that they will never vote to reelect the president.

Trump’s support stems primarily from participants who consider themselves devout or active Catholics, about one fifth of those polled. That 18 percent of devout Catholics was also a more diverse group of voters with large shares of Latinos and women. 

Among this subset, Trump’s approval rating was 63 percent. A majority of these devout Catholics — 59 percent — said that they plan to vote for the president while just 20 percent said they’ll vote to oppose Trump. 

In 2016 exit polls, 23 percent of voters identified as Catholic. President Trump beat Hillary Clinton within that demographic by 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent.

The poll from RealClearPolitics and EWTN News, a network dedicated to providing news from a Catholic perspective, showed that the Catholic voting bloc is crucial to the president’s reelection bid.

The president’s backing by Catholics stems in part from their approval of the U.S. economy. More than half of Catholics asked said that the country is better off financially than it was before Trump assumed the presidency.

About two-thirds of Catholics interviewed believe that they are personally better off than they were four years ago. 

The survey also discovered that over 40 percent of Catholic voters polled argue that there’s an “anti-Christian” bias in the media. This number rises to 59 percent among the most devout fifth within the bloc.

Monday’s poll is the second of a four-part series pursued by EWTN News and RealClearPolitics. The margin of error was about plus or minus 2.8 percent and participants were interviewed from January 28 to February 4. 

 

Vandalism hits Bloomberg campaign offices across the U.S.

WASHINGTON — At least seven of Mike Bloomberg’s campaign offices have been vandalized over the last two weeks, campaign officials say, in a string of incidents that the Bloomberg campaign has blamed without evidence on Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

In the latest case, discovered early Monday morning, a Chicago office was graffitied with the words “racist,” “sexist,” and “oligarch” spray-painted in red on the windows of the building. Other vandalism at offices in Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee have referenced Bloomberg’s wealth and stop-and-frisk policing policy.

Kevin Sheekey, Bloomberg’s campaign manager, called the incident an “act of hate” and referenced the Sanders campaign.

“While we do not know who is directly responsible, we do know Senator Bernie Sanders and his campaign have repeatedly invoked this language, and the word ‘oligarch’ specifically when discussing Mike Bloomberg and his campaign,” Sheekey said.  “Sen. Sanders’ refusal to denounce these illegal acts is a sign of his inability to lead, and his willingness to condone and promote Trump-like rhetoric has no place in our politics.”

Sheekey called on Sanders to instruct his supporters and staff “to elevate the discourse in this campaign and end their spread of hateful rhetoric.” He suggested the incidents could lead to violence if not tamped down by Sanders, adding, “This needs to end before someone gets hurt.”

No direct evidence has emerged of any involvement from Sanders supporters in the vandalism. The Sanders campaign has not commented on any of the incidents.

The Bloomberg campaign meanwhile, has pointed out that many of the specific phrases graffitied on Bloomberg’s office have been used by Sanders’ top surrogates and staffers, including national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray, senior advisor David Sirota and Rep. Nina Turner, Sanders’ campaign co-chair.

Still, blaming Sanders supporters for at a minimum inspiring the vandalism represents a risky strategy for Bloomberg, who could face questions about a rush to judgement if evidence emerges that another party was to blame. It also opens Bloomberg up to criticism that by trading in unproven allegations against an opponent, he’s using tactics that Democrats have long derided Trump for employing.

The vandalism against Bloomberg’s offices first came to light in mid-February when offices in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Toledo, Ohio, were vandalized. Signs and writing on the windows vilified Bloomberg as a “corporate pig” and an “oligarch,” according to the Bloomberg campaign and local news coverage.

More incidents were soon discovered in Flint, Mich., where an office was defaced with a sign reading, “Eat the Rich,” the campaign said. Late last week, the campaign’s office in Knoxville, Tenn., was defaced with expletives spray-painted in orange, video footage of the office shows.

So far, no one has been injured in the acts of vandalism, the Bloomberg campaign stated.

The incidents come as Bloomberg faces increasing ire from the other 2020 candidates and their supporters for crashing the Democratic primary late in the game and thrusting himself into the top tier with a deluge of spending from his personal fortune. In just a few months, Bloomberg has already poured more than $464 million of his own money into his campaign.

Yet while Bloomberg has been taking many of the incoming attacks from other Democratic candidates, it’s Sanders who is the clear front-runner and leader in the delegate race following his massive victory in Nevada, where Bloomberg didn’t compete.

So as Sanders’ dominance in the race has solidified in the last few days, Bloomberg and the others have increasingly turned their attention to blunting his momentum. Their arguments echoed concerns from the Democratic establishment that Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, might not only lose to Trump but become an albatross around the necks of down-ballot Democrats, damaging the party’s prospects for keeping the House and flipping control of the Senate in November.

Dan Kanninen, director of states for the Bloomberg campaign, told reporters on Monday that nominating Sanders against a candidate as strong as President Donald Trump would be a “fatal error” for Democrats. Still, he asserted that Bloomberg would support whoever emerges as the Democratic nominee — even if it’s Sanders.

-Gary Grumbach contributed

Steyer poised to make debate return in South Carolina

WASHINGTON — After missing last week’s debate in Nevada, billionaire Tom Steyer looks poised to make his return to the stage this week in South Carolina. 

Steyer appears to have qualified as of Sunday morning, after a new CBS News/YouGov poll found him in third place with 18 percent. The billionaire philanthropist has been polling well in the Palmetto State, allowing him to qualify with two state polls of at least 10 percent. 

He stands to be the only addition to Tuesday’s debate, as all who qualified for Nevada’s debate are locked in and Tulsi Gabbard remains all-but certain to miss the threshold. 

Buttigieg looks to cement viability before Super Tuesday

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — After finishing in the top two in the Iowa and New Hampshire nominating contests, former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg hoped to shape this Democratic contest as a two-man race between himself and Bernie Sanders, but as voters here make their voices heard today, the field remains diluted. 

Buttigieg’s chief opponents, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn, have no plan to exit the race before Super Tuesday. And among each of the campaigns, there’s anxiety that the forthcoming results will there’s provide little clarity as to which candidate is best positioned to counter a surging Sen. Bernie Sanders and fend off former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s big-spending operation.

On Super Tuesday, March 3, more than half of the total delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be apportioned. And before those states, which might be friendlier to the Buttigieg campaign, Democratic candidates are still trying to prove themselves competitive in Nevada and South Carolina where the majority of the Democratic electorate is voters of color.

And Buttigieg is still struggling to gain their support. 

“I think he’d be the first to say the candidate who can’t get black and brown support shouldn’t be the president,” a senior Buttigieg campaign official told NBC News. “We will need to demonstrate that we can be successful so we can have the permission structure to go on to Super Tuesday.”

But Buttigieg’s best hopes might come from voters who haven’t made up their minds yet. Recent polling in Nevada indicates that there is still a sizable part of the electorate that has yet to make up its mind. And in New Hampshire, Buttigieg did well with those voters: Of the 48 percent of New Hampshire voters who said they chose a candidate in the final days, Buttigieg won the largest share of them with 28 percent support. 

Money, though, may be Buttigieg’s bigger issue in reaching those voters. 

Recently, Buttigieg sent a fundraising email to supporters decrying Bloomberg’s spending. “We are now also up against a billionaire who is throwing colossal sums of money on television instead of doing the work of campaigning,” Buttigieg wrote. “He just expects others to clear a path for him and his money.”

In a second fundraising email Buttigieg’s deputy campaign manager, Hari Sevugan, put it more bluntly: “We need to raise $13 million to keep our campaign going through Super Tuesday.”

And in these Super Tuesday states, without money it can feel impossible to get your message across. 

“This isn’t Iowa or New Hampshire. You can walk faster than you can drive around here,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a longtime California political professor. “You have to have a motivated base — and money. You need to have money.”

Buttigieg hits Sanders, Medicare for All in two South Carolina ads

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — As the Democratic primary race heads South, Former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is out with a new television ad taking direct aim at Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on health care.

Buttigieg hit the airwaves in South Carolina on Friday with a new 30-second spot distinguishing his “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan from Sanders’ Medicare for All plan. Ad viewers won’t hear those differences from Buttigieg though, they’ll hear from a female narrator telling viewers that Medicare for All could force them off their plans. 

“Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” would completely eliminate private insurance, forcing one hundred fifty million Americans off their current plans — including twenty million seniors on Medicare Advantage,” the narrator says as a photo of Sanders sits on screen for nearly 15 seconds.

Then, the ad flips to shots of Buttigieg speaking to and meeting with voters as the narrator describes his health care plan as, “a better way to lower costs and cover everyone.” The spot ends with a pointed pitch for “progress” instead of “polarization.”

Buttigieg has doubled down on this message in several weeks, including during the Democratic debate in Nevada where he called Sanders one of the most “polarizing” candidates. The former mayor has also questioned how exactly the Vermont senator would pay for his health care plan.

Sanders for his part has outlined several options for paying for his plan, but has signaled that the specifics will come later.

“You’re asking me to come up with an exact detailed plan of how every American — how much you’re going to pay more in taxes, how much I’m going to pay,” Sanders told CNBC in October. “I don’t think I have to do that right now.”

For Buttigieg, this latest television ad buy is part of a one-two punch, coinciding with a new 60-second radio ad titled, “Right Plan,” that contrasts also the two healthcare plans. It also comes as new South Carolina polling suggests Sanders has expanded his base while Buttigieg is making his last efforts to gain traction in the Palmetto State.

Nevada GOP House candidate hopes to gain traction

WASHINGTON — With all eyes on Nevada ahead of tomorrow’s presidential caucuses, congressional candidates in the state are also revving up their campaigns. One Republican receiving attention is Lisa Song Sutton, an Asian-American in her thirties, former Miss Nevada, and entrepreneur whose past ventures include founding a boozy cupcake shop. She’s running for the GOP nomination in the state’s Fourth Congressional District, currently held by Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford.

Song Sutton told NBC News in a phone interview last month that while politics wasn’t originally part of her plan, she’s running because she feels that Horsford has “gone D.C.” on voters and is a part-time Nevadan failing to represent them.

Song Sutton also argued that she — along with a record-number of Republican women considering runs for Congress  — can offer voters an additional, new face of the GOP in 2020.

“We’re coming from every possible background,” the candidate said. “The GOP knows that it needs to look more like America.”

But before facing Horsford, the former Miss Nevada faces a crowded primary of nearly ten challengers. 

Song Sutton claims she brings something to the table that her competitors don’t, saying her candidacy is about unification and promoting community engagement within the majority minority district. 

“This is my community,” she said, adding that she has ties to even the bluest spots in the district, which spans from Las Vegas to rural areas. “I want to serve it and I think I can do that in a very effective way.”

Song Sutton noted that her 2014 Miss Nevada title helps her candidacy and said her campaign has averaged 2,000 miles each month talking to voters. 

Song Sutton has amassed nearly 32,000 Twitter followers and surpassed her primary rivals in individual contributions for two consecutive quarters. She raised more than $130,000 in the fourth quarter of 2019 and a total of about $258,000 for the year according to FEC filings.

She was the only GOP candidate to finish 2019 with no debt and gained nearly $128,000 in the first 90 days of her campaign  — more than any of her Republican competitors raised in the same amount of time on the trail. 

And her campaign has picked up endorsements from some of the top GOP women in the Silver State, including former Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian and Las Vegas City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman.

Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the UVA Center for Politics, told NBC News Wednesday that although Song Sutton led the pack in fundraising last quarter, he doesn’t consider any of the GOP candidates’ performances in that metric “particularly impressive.” 

Kondik stressed however, that Democrats must retain Nevada to win the White House and warned that losing either NV-03 or NV-04 “would be a bad sign for Democratic hopes of winning the House.”

Professor Dan Lee at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas reiterated this point Wednesday, arguing that districts like this “play a role in shifting the balance of majority power in the House.” 

Both political experts deem the Fourth Congressional District leaning or likely Democratic.

The filing deadline for the primary is March 13 and Nevadans will vote in the contest on June 9. 

Bloomberg has spent more than $400 million on presidential campaign

LAS VEGAS — Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent an unprecedented $220.6 million in the month of January alone on his presidential bid, new campaign finance disclosures show. 

The latest filing sheds even more light on the unprecedented nature of the self-funded bid by one of the world’s wealthiest people — Bloomberg spent more money in January than any candidate has ever spent in one calendar month. And overall, he’s spent more than $400 million on his campaign so far. 

We don’t have Jan $ yet for the other candidates (filing today).

But Bloomberg spent $69 million more in JANUARY ALONE than the rest of the candidates who stood next to him on last night’s debate stage spent in the last 3 months of 2019 COMBINED. https://t.co/V7R8bjKY3X

— Ben Kamisar (@bkamisar) February 20, 2020

The Bloomberg campaign told reporters it has so far spent more than $300 million on advertising, $7 million on polling and $9 million in payroll for its more than 2,000-member staff. It’s also paid $25.6 million to Hawkfish, the digital-ad firm Bloomberg founded, which Bloomberg plans on retaining through November to mount an effort against President Trump even if he does not emerge victorious in the Democratic nomination fight. 

Bloomberg isn’t accepting any donations from supporters, but currently has about $55.1 million to spend in cash on hand. A campaign aide emphasized that Bloomberg will spend whatever it takes to defeat Trump, and that this number isn’t indicative of the remaining budget of the campaign.