A8 eZ sU the washington post.friday, february 21 , 2020
BY MATT VISER,
DAN BALZ
AND ANNIE LINSKEYLAS V EGAS — T he final question at
Wednesday’s candidate debate in
Nevada provided a telling s umma-
ry of the state of the Democratic
nomination contest. It’s now Ber-
nie S anders a gainst the field.
The question for the six candi-
dates onstage was straightfor-
ward. Should t he p erson who wins
the m ost pledged delegates during
the primaries, even if he or she
does not have a majority, b e nomi-
nated at the national convention
in milwaukee to become the par-
ty’s challenger to President
Trump?
Sanders, alone, said yes. The
five other candidates said that, in
that scenario, the decision of who
becomes the nominee should be
left to all the delegates at the con-
vention, including the r oughly 770
superdelegates — the party com-
mittee members, lawmakers and
other high-ranking Democrats
who can only vote if the contest
goes to a second b allot.
But if there is agreement that
Sanders will lead the delegate
race, there is similar agreement
that he is not likely to be able to
win a majority. If that turns out to
be the case, Democrats could he
headed for a chaotic national con-
vention, one that could split the
party and weaken Democrats in
the general election, regardless of
who ends u p as the n ominee.
“What’s clear out of [Wednes-
day] night is, it’s hard to see what
forces will stop Bernie from be-
coming the front-runner and just
as hard to see how there will be
any consolidation into a single
candidate to oppose him,” robby
mook, who was Hillary Clinton’s
campaign manager in 2016, said
Thursday morning.
The dawning realization for
many in the party is that what
Democrats had envisioned as a
jubilant national convention in
milwaukee, ground zero in a criti-
cal general-election battleground,
has the potential to turn into a
pitched battle among multiple
candidates and their supporters,
each representing dueling ideo-
logical w ings o f the p arty a nd con-
vinced that the other side would
lose to Trump.
To p campaigns have not only
staffed up w ith delegate experts to
guide them through the intrica-
cies of t he p rimaries, but t hey also
have built legal teams preparing to
challenge any results t hat don’t go
their way, according to interviews
with 16 top party officials and
strategists.
And in preparation for a con-
tested convention, some cam-
paigns have s tarted t o reach out to
superdelegates, in an attempt to
secure support for a second ballot
when they would come into p lay.
“This is going to go to the con-
vention,” s aid melvin Poindexter, a
Democratic National Committee
member f rom massachusetts. “It’s
going t o be a brokered convention.
I just don’t see any of the candi-
dates coming in and winning the
first ballot. Particularly looking at
the n umber o f candidates who are
running.”
If anything, Wednesday’s de-
bate provided incentive for all the
candidates trying to become the
alternative to Sanders to stay in
the race as long as possible. Party
strategists agreed that the poor
performance by former New York
mayor mike Bloomberg probably
eliminated any hopes that he
could easily consolidate the mod-
erate-to-center-left wing of the
party in opposition to Sanders.
At the same time, the fiery per-
formance by Sen. Elizabeth War-
ren (D-mass.), who not only ham-
mered B loomberg b ut also took o n
many of the others onstage, could
give her the e ncouragement to see
the race through to the end, de-
spite third- and fourth-place fin-
ishes in Iowa and New Hamp-
shire, respectively.Her ability to continue on ulti-
mately will depend on how well
she does over the next two weeks
and whether she raises enough
money to sustain her candidacy.
But Wednesday’s debate provided
a needed jolt. Her presence could
affect Sanders’s ability to enlarge
his coalition.
Warren also took steps to make
herself more competitive — pro-
viding tacit approval for the super
PAC that has been formed to back
her candidacy, effectively contra-
dicting her past comments criti-
cizing groups that take unlimited
contributions. And Warren’s cam-
paign announced Thursday that i t
has raised $7 million since last
week’s New Hampshire primary,
setting a new goal to r aise another
$3 million b y Saturday.
The focus Wednesday night on
Bloomberg, and his inability to
counter t he a ttacks, proved to be a
gift to Sanders. The senator from
Vermont did c ome in for criticism,
especially from former South
Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg
and from Bloomberg, but overall,
he avoided the kind of scrutiny
and attacks normally aimed at a
front-runner.
Still, Sanders left o pen the ques-
tion of just how broad his support
is or can become. Some strategistssaw the debate as potentially
pushing Sanders into a narrower
ideological corner of the Demo-
cratic electorate that could, in
time, p lay to his disadvantage.
Democratic pollster Stan
Greenberg said Sanders’s support
has come mostly from those who
identify themselves as “very liber-
al,” a group that constitutes f ar less
than half of the Democratic elec-
torate.
“Sanders is robustly and self-
confidently the most progressive
candidate,” Greenberg said. “The
question is, does he have voters
beyond the very liberal part of the
Democratic electorate?”
All the candidates must get
through Saturday’s Nevada cau-
cuses, in w hich Sanders is favored,
and the South Carolina primary a
week later, an event that is critical
to the candidacy of former vice
president Joe Biden.
But the real focus now is on
what follows three days after
South Carolina, which is Super
Tuesday and the beginning of a
nationalized campaign for dele-
gates. Sanders is seen a s best posi-
tioned to do well because he has
the m oney, o rganization a nd expe-
rience to navigate through a na-
tionalized campaign.
The arcane process that Demo-crats use to pick nominees puts a
premium on candidates who have
broad support to win statewide
contests, which a ward a portion o f
the delegates, and also win indi-
vidual congressional districts,
which account for the rest of the
delegates. The process also bene-
fits campaigns that can pinpoint
the areas where they can either
win a few extra delegates — or
potentially deny an opponent
from doing so.
Because there are no winner-
take-all contests, delegates are
awarded proportionally to any
candidate who hits a threshold of
15 percent of the vote. In a field in
which there are several candi-
dates competing and reaching
that t hreshold, it becomes difficult
for anyone to reach a majority by
the e nd of the primaries. But those
same rules give a big advantage to
the candidate who gains even a
modest lead. for those running
behind, making up that ground
becomes more a nd more d ifficult.
The Las Vegas d ebate was more
evidence that this nominating
contest is n ot like o thers, in which
candidates quickly fall away after
poor finishes in early states. At
almost every stage so far, events
have conspired to keep the field
large and fluid. That helps Sand-
ers for now but means the other
candidates probably will seek
ways to win delegates and stay in
the r ace until the c onvention.
“I don’t s ee how t his is n ot going
to be a brokered convention,” said
Nathan Smith, a DNC member
from Kentucky. “Let’s be honest:
It’s a made-for-TV e vent now.”
Pledged d elegates are supposed
to vote on the first ballot for the
candidate who won in their state
or district. But they are freed u p on
the second ballot to do as they
wish, and at that point, the super-
delegates are also able to vote for
whichever candidate t hey choose.
“I don’t think it’s going to be a
chair-throwing fiasco,” s aid Grace
Carrington, a committee member
from florida. “ But we know t here’s
going to be a second, maybe a third
vote.”
Party leaders worry they couldbe heading toward a convention
collision.
“I fear divisions within the par-
ty might be our biggest problem,”
said Cynthia Busch, a committee
member from florida, who was a
Sanders delegate in 2016 and is
currently uncommitted.
Wendy Davis, a committee
member from Georgia, said she
would urge everyone to remain
positive and not fall into needless
conflict.
“I’m very troubled that we’re
setting up for a circular firing
squad,” s he said.
Sheikh rahman, a committee
member f rom G eorgia, s aid he has
heard from the Buttigieg, Biden
and Sanders campaigns recently
but is making no commitments. If
it comes to a contested conven-
tion, he plans to survey scores of
state committee members to help
him determine which candidate
to support at t he convention.
“I’m trying to stay on the side-
line at the moment and see what
happens,” he said. “I’m just taking
the s afe r oute.”
former Virginia g overnor Te rry
mcAuliffe, also a former DNC
chair, predicted that any candi-
date who enters the convention
with a large plurality would win
the nomination. “If it’s close,” he
added, “that’s a different reality.”
rahm Emanuel, the former
mayor of Chicago, warned t hat the
convention could descend into
chaos unless steps are taken soon
to assure that those in charge in
milwaukee are experts on the
rules and with personalities and
stature strong enough to wield a
gavel effectively.
“The chair of the convention is
not for the fainthearted,” he said.
“[DNC Chair Tom] Perez had bet-
ter organize it, because you’re go-
ing t o need i t. T here’s g oing to b e a
fight. The chairman of the party
better have a war room for the
convention.”
ma [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]sean sullivan contributed to this
report.With field in flux, Democrats prepare for possibility of contested convention
salwan georges/the washington Post
Sen. bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) won the New Hampshire primary last
week. See a video from this week’s debate at wapo.st/Campaign.Fiery debate underscores
incentive for candidates
to remain in the racedent Trump. The other is the
sometimes bumbling, frequently
ineffective and often peevish poli-
tician who showed up Wednesday
night, operating on the fly.
“You can’t advertise as a com-
batant and then get on the stage
and then not be a combatant,”
observed the rev. Al Sharpton,
founder of the National Action
Network, who watched the de-
bate in Las Vegas. “He just missed
a lot of things I would have done if
I was him.”
Bloomberg’s advisers, well
aware of his uneven public per-
formance as New York mayor,
have tried to reconcile the two
identities. They have scripted a
campaign message that focuses
heavily on the sheer scale of his
operation and power of his purse,
not the campaign talents of the
candidate. on the trail, he boasts
of having “the record and the
resources” to challenge Trump,
not the heart or the passion. They
have had to urge him to be more
forthcoming about his modest
upbringing and emotional drive,
along with offering more heart-
felt apologies for policies like
stop-and-frisk policing that ad-
versely affected minority commu-
nities.
on the debate stage, he offered
a meandering and sometimes
misleading explanation of the po-
lice strategy to frisk young minor-
ity men, eventually saying, “I’ve
asked for forgiveness, but the
bottom line is that we stopped too
many people.” Pounded by rivals
about allegations of sexual ha-
rassment at his company, he was
booed when he refused to release
women from nondisclosure
agreements signed as part of set-
tlements. He added, unhelpfully,
“None of them accuse me of doing
anything, other than maybe they
didn’t like a joke I told.”
Bloomberg confidants who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity t o discuss campaign strat-
egy said that his debate prepara-
tion included answers to ques-
tions on stop-and-frisk and his
behavior toward women, but he
nonetheless fumbled when con-
fronted with those topics onstage.
His advisers admit there is much
more work to do; even before the
debate, his confidants were seek-
ing to lower expectations.
“It's going to be terrible,” one
person who works with the
Bloomberg operation said on the
condition of anonymity to discuss
private campaign discussions.
The threat that Bloomberg’s
debate performance undermines
his image among voters as a
potential Trump toppler comes at
a perilous time for the campaign,
bloomberg from A
which has concluded in an inter-
nal analysis that the window for
preventing Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.) from winning the nomina-
tion or a plurality of delegates is
beginning to close. His campaign
has not tried to hide the concern.
“Listen, I think mike’s got to
get his legs under him,” his cam-
paign manager, Kevin Sheekey,
told mSNBC on Thursday.
In recent days, Sanders’s poll-
ing has spiked in key states after
his strong showings in Iowa and
New Hampshire. As he has con-
solidated much of the party’s left,
its pool of moderate voters have
split among multiple rivals, limit-
ing them to levels of support that
may keep them from the 15 per-
cent threshold needed to win
delegates.
Bloomberg’s advisers say they
believe that Sanders is likely to
become unstoppable if he wins by
more than 10 percentage points
in California, where an enormous
cache of delegates will be allocat-
ed by voting march 3. They are
hopeful that the strong debate
performance Wednesday by Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-mass.)
could expand her support and eat
into Sanders’s base.
Already, Bloomberg’s perfor-mance has given backers some
pause. Several longtime Demo-
cratic donors and fundraisers
said Thursday that Bloomberg
had effectively frozen the mo-
mentum building for his candida-
cy and away from that of former
vice president Joe Biden. They
said they were disappointed at
Bloomberg’s a pparent inability todefend himself against predict-
able questions.
Those who closely watched
Bloomberg’s time as mayor were
far less surprised about his de-
bate performance than those who
have viewed him through his
slickly produced, relentlessly an-
ti-Trump ads. The Bloomberg
who showed up in Las Vegas on
Wednesday appeared at times to
be bored, frustrated, dismissive
and entitled. “What am I, chicken
liver?” he asked at o ne point, after
not being called on for several
minutes. At other points, he gaveanswers so concisely that he ced-
ed speaking time to his rivals.
“I thought he was pure
Bloomberg,” s aid Kathryn Wylde,
who leads the Partnership for
New York City, a pro-business
group, and regularly dealt with
Bloomberg as mayor. She de-
scribed the experience as “about
what I expected.”Even before the debate,
Bloomberg had been slow to ad-
just to the different rules of the
presidential campaign process.
He has given few media inter-
views, and sometimes appeared
combative or dismissive to re-
porters on the campaign trail,
limiting the back-and-forth that
can hone a candidate’s answers.
As mayor, Bloomberg would
regularly snap at reporters who
questioned him on his personal
life or vacation schedule. He re-
fused to say when he was out of
New York and would also growangry when reporters asked
about his business.
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s an
outrage for you to say that,”
Bloomberg told a reporter, in
2013, who asked him about a
pattern of sexist remarks.
Bloomberg had been quoted days
before commenting coarsely
about the derriere of a woman in
a tight red dress.
Now his efforts to dismiss
those same questions as concerns
about jokes are being subjected to
a new level of public scrutiny.
Nearly 20 million people watched
Wednesday’s debate, and count-
less others saw video clips that
circulated all day Thursday.
Trump, another New York bil-
lionaire adept in handling the
hometown press, took particular
glee in watching Bloomberg’s p er-
formance Wednesday, two people
who spoke to him told The Wash-
ington Post on the condition of
anonymity. The president told
them that he always knew
Bloomberg would be a poor de-
bater.
Bloomberg’s refusal to release
former employees from confiden-
tiality agreements seems certain
to dog his campaign over the
coming days. During the debate,Warren said there might be “doz-
ens” of women who signed confi-
dentiality agreements regarding
sexual harassment and discrimi-
nation. Bloomberg responded
that there were “very few” non-
disclosure agreements, and said
they were mutually agreed upon.
“They signed the agreements,
and that’s what we’re going to live
with,” Bloomberg responded.
one employee, Sekiko Sakai
Garrison, filed the most high-pro-
file suit against Bloomberg, alleg-
ing that he told her to “kill it”
when he learned she was preg-
nant. Garrison said in her suit
that she took Bloomberg’s r emark
as a reference to abortion. Garri-
son settled the case for a sum in
the six figures, three people who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity have told The Post.
Bloomberg has denied Garrison’s
allegations.
Bonnie Josephs, a New York
City lawyer who initially repre-
sented a former Bloomberg em-
ployee in a sexual harassment
case, said Thursday that
Bloomberg does not have the
right to speak for the women on
whether they want to be released
from the agreements. If he re-
leased the women, she said, they
could remain quiet if they want
matters to remain confidential, or
“they could decide whether to
speak in public themselves.”
Bloomberg plans to work with
advisers to improve his perfor-
mance in the days before Tuesday
night’s debate in South Carolina.
He has a scant public schedule
over the coming weekend, with a
single speaking event in North
Carolina on Saturday. Aides not-
ed that he did better Wednesday
as the debate progressed.
“mike has a very serious record
of doing things, but he has never
been a showman. mike is some-
one who has always hired really
smart people to deliver results,”
Sheekey said in an interview with
The Post. “He is adaptable and
has adapted in the past.”
In Salt Lake City on Thursday,
Bloomberg was not yet ready to
publicly admit he needed to im-
prove onstage. “So how was your
night last night?” he joked to his
supporters in the prepared re-
marks he read after arriving.
As he was entering the venue,
he walked swiftly by a group of
reporters, one of whom asked
Bloomberg how he thought he
had done the night before.
“fine, thank you,” Bloomberg
responded.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Michelle ye hee lee contributed to
this report.Bloomberg works to regain swagger after debate bashing
toni l. sandys/the washington Post
mike bloomberg departs his plane in el Paso in January. During Wednesday night’s Democratic debate in las Vegas, bloomberg — known
for his $340 million worth of ads — at times came off as dismissive and e ntitled. For video, visit wapo.st/Bloomberg“Mike has a very serious record of doing things,
but he has never been a showman.”
Kevin Sheekey, campaign manager for Mike BloombergUPLOADED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws