The Washington Post - 03.03.2020

A6 eZ sU THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020

election 2020

monday — and were persuading

others to do so, too.

on monday, a longtime obama

donor in Northern California

who had given to multiple candi-

dates during the primaries sent

emails urging party donors waf-

fling between Bloomberg and

Biden to coalesce around Biden.

And on Wall Street, Buttigieg

donors were calling one another

to say Biden was the best alterna-

tive, barring a Bloomberg upset

Tuesday.

one longtime Democratic do-

nor in New York, who spoke on

the condition of anonymity to

describe private conversations,

said there were meetings sched-

uled with major Wall Street fi-

nanciers starting Sunday

through Wednesday, out of anxi-

ety about Buttigieg’s fourth-place

finish in South Carolina and con-

cern over his chances on Super

Tuesday.

Klobuchar’s early exit means

that her home state of minnesota,

which has 75 delegates at stake in

its primary, is up for grabs Tues-

day. Sanders won the state when

it held caucuses in 2016 and had

closely trailed Klobuchar in re-

cent polls. He held a rally in

minneapolis on monday night.

Klobuchar’s decision came af-

ter she finished near the bottom

in the South Carolina primary

Saturday. The senator had briefly

surged in some polls after a

strong performance at the feb. 7

Democratic debate in man-

chester, N.H. Her campaign had

dubbed the boost “Klomentum”

and hoped it would catapult her

into the top tier of candidates

through the rest of the early-

nominating states.

Klobuchar finished in third

place in the New Hampshire pri-

mary, but a disappointing sixth

place in the Nevada caucuses and

in South Carolina. She had

planned an aggressive travel

schedule in advance of Super

Tuesday but dropped out before

she could execute it.

[email protected]

Annie Linskey, Dan Balz, Michael

scherer, cleve r. Wootson Jr.,

Michelle ye Hee Lee, Amy B Wang

and sean sullivan contributed to this

report.

carried by momentum and en-

dorsements.

“The country is hungry — hun-

gry, hungry, hungry — to be

united. most Americans, they

don’t want a promise of a revolu-

tion, they want a guarantee of

results,” Biden said earlier in the

day during a campaign stop in

Houston. “... We need real re-

sults, and we need them now. I’ve

done that my whole career.”

on CBS on monday morning,

Biden said his surge in support

occurred in part because candi-

dates down the ballot are wary of

running with Sanders as the

Democratic standard-bearer.

“I think there’s an awful lot of

people who are running for office

who don’t want to run with Ber-

nie at the top of the ticket as a

self-proclaimed socialist,” he

said.

The party’s donor class also

began to rally to Biden’s side.

A handful of key Democratic

donors who were raising big

checks for Buttigieg or consider-

ing publicly endorsing

Bloomberg said they were throw-

ing their support to Biden on

when he thought Biden’s ideas

were worthy of being put in a

fireplace.”

Biden is hoping that the mo-

mentum from his romping South

Carolina win, and the party’s

efforts to consolidate behind

him, will be enough to offset his

campaign’s continuing deficien-

cies. He is spending the least on

ads, has one of the thinnest orga-

nizations and saw his candidacy

stall at a time when most other

campaigns were banking early

votes.

Biden hopes to win among

Southern states that more closely

mirror South Carolina, where he

won nearly 50 percent of the vote

Saturday, in part because of his

giant lead among African Ameri-

can voters.

His campaign has since re-

ceived a large fundraising boost,

with $5 million coming Saturday

and at least $5 million Sunday —

all told, more in two days than it

raised in all of January.

But the money came too late to

make a major advertising splash

in the Super Tuesday states, and

instead Biden was hoping to be

are septuagenarians.

In Tuesday’s primaries, 1,

delegates are up for grabs, nearly

a third of the total and the most of

any single day in the Democratic

race. California and Te xas are the

biggest prizes, but delegate-rich

states like Virginia, North Caroli-

na, massachusetts and Colorado

will also vote.

To p advisers to the campaigns

agree that Sanders is poised to

win a big delegate haul, and the

main question is whether it will

set him on an insurmountable

course toward the nomination.

“A fter watching this campaign

unfold, after watching 10 de-

bates, there’s no way you can

rationally believe that Joe Biden

is strongest candidate to defeat

Donald Trump,” said Ari rabin-

Havt, a deputy campaign manag-

er for Sanders.

Shortly after reid announced

his endorsement of Biden, faiz

Shakir, who is Sanders’s cam-

paign manager but also worked

for reid, wrote on Twitter: “Dis-

appointing. I’ll forever have re-

spect and love for Senator reid.

But I’m old enough to remember

Warren’s current plan is to

remain an active candidate all

the way to the convention, even if

she is not accumulating signifi-

cant numbers of delegates. She

says that will give her some lever-

age over the party’s platform and

any other issues that might be at

the forefront in milwaukee.

She continued her refrain

monday that her operation is

built “for the long haul,” and she

received an endorsement from

Emily’s List, which works to elect

women in politics.

The super PAC supporting her

candidacy is raising money for a

big TV ad buy in states like

Arizona, florida, Illinois and

ohio, which vote march 17, ac-

cording to a person familiar with

Persist PAC’s operations who was

not authorized to openly discuss

the group’s strategy and spoke on

the condition of anonymity.

Sanders remains perhaps the

most formidable force in the race,

finishing in the top two in all four

early states and holding on to a

polling advantage in numerous

delegate-rich states that will vote

Tuesday. He also has a significant

financial edge and a grass-roots

army that Biden so far has lacked,

and he was defiant monday in the

face of the moderate consolida-

tion.

“Look, we are taking on the

establishment. And I fully under-

stand — n o great surprise to me —

that establishment politicians

are not going to endorse us,”

Sanders told reporters in Salt

Lake City, just minutes before the

news broke that Klobuchar was

ending her campaign and plan-

ning to support Biden.

“The establishment will rally

around the establishment candi-

date,” he said. “That’s the simple

reality.”

President Trump, who has re-

peatedly tried to offer sideline

commentary about the Demo-

cratic contest, tweeted with glee:

“They are staging a coup against

Bernie!”

What began a year ago as a

historically large and diverse

Democratic field has quickly nar-

rowed to five remaining contend-

ers. With the two youngest major

candidates dropping out, all of

the remaining major candidates

“I cannot think of a better way to
end my campaign than joining
his.”
Beto o’rourke, the former Te x-
as congressman who ended his
presidential bid in November,
joined Biden on stage at the end
of the Dallas rally — and conclud-
ed a speech by inviting him for
dinner at a nearby Whataburger.
Biden seemed taken aback by
the swift change in fortunes. He
told Buttigieg that he reminded
him of his late son, Beau, the
highest compliment he can offer.
He told the crowd Klobuchar has
a long political future ahead, and
he told o’rourke, whose candida-
cy was marked by liberal posi-
tions on gun control, “You’re go-
ing to take care of the gun prob-
lem with me. You’re going to be
the one who leads this effort.”
It was the second straight day
that moderates, previously para-
lyzed over whom to r ally behind,
rushed to join Biden’s campaign.
Harry m. reid, a former Senate
majority leader from Nevada, en-
dorsed Biden along with other
Democrats including Susan E.
rice, a former national security
adviser to President Barack
obama; political activist and ac-
tress Alyssa milano; Victoria reg-
gie Kennedy, the widow of Sen.
Edward m. Kennedy (D-mass.);
and Sen. Ta mmy Duckworth (D-
Ill.).
There are still looming ques-
tions about Biden — h is propensi-
ty for gaffes, the moments when
he searches for words or, on
monday, his struggle to come up
with well-worn phrases in the
Declaration of Independence be-
fore shouting, “You know... the
thing!” — but his campaign has
found unmistakable new mo-
mentum that it is hoping to carry
into the elections Tuesday.
Not everyone was playing to
his benefit, however. Sen. Eliza-
beth Warren (D-mass.) and for-
mer New York mayor mike
Bloomberg both pledged monday
to stay in the race.
“I’m in it to win it,” Bloomberg
said. He has poured hundreds of
millions of dollars into the prima-
ry contest and will appear on
ballots for the first time Tuesday.

camPaIgn from a

Klobuchar drops out, joins other Democratic moderates in endorsing Biden

erIc tHAyer/reUters

Sen. amy Klobuchar (D-minn.) endorses former vice president Joe Biden at a rally in Dallas. The

senator ended her own presidential bid after sixth-place finishes in nevada and South carolina.

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