The Washington Post - 24.02.2020

A6 eZ re the washington post.monday, february 24 , 2020

nois — are favorable enough to

Buttigieg to allow him to make up

ground. His campaign has already

spent money on digital ads in

some o f those states, and last week

sent a paid organizer to Ohio.

His hunt for delegates already

has led him to different places

than S anders.

Last week, Buttigieg squeezed

in a trip to Salt Lake City, where

his campaign has made a major

organizing push and earned en-

dorsements from several local of-

ficials. His campaign also is count-

ing on delegate-rich areas i n some

of the less high-profile Super Tues-

day states — Little Rock, for one.

He campaigned in Northern Vir-

ginia Sunday and has stops sched-

uled in Raleigh, N.C., and Oklaho-

ma City before Super Tuesday.

VoteVets, the super PAC support-

ing Buttigieg, announced Sunday

it will make a seven-figure ad buy

in various S uper Tuesday s tates.

One difficulty with that strate-

gy, even if it does yield as many

delegates as his campaign hopes,

is that it defers winning — and

without victories, money and mo-

mentum will be harder to come by.

Buttigieg acknowledged Satur-

day that he has something to

prove in South Carolina, too, giv-

en his struggles to accumulate

support from nonwhite voters

and the more diverse electorates

heading to the polls on Super

Tuesday.

“Obviously South Carolina is a n

opportunity to demonstrate that

our coalition is broader than peo-

ple thought,” Buttigieg told re-

porters o n his charter flight Satur-

day. “... and then we’ve got to

have a good showing in Super

Tuesday — it’s why we’re pushing

so hard to make sure we have the

resources to win.”

Warren, meanwhile, went

straight to Seattle on Saturday for

the kind of rally that can double a s

a fundraising opportunity by fos-

tering enthusiasm. She hasn’t

won a delegate since the Feb. 3

Iowa caucuses, and polling in

South Carolina suggests she won’t

collect any there, either. But War-

ren is banking her candidacy on

the idea that she can begin accu-

mulating delegates on March 3 by

doing well in liberal pockets such

as Denver, San Antonio and the

Los Angeles a rea.

Over the next few days, Warren

will campaign in South Carolina,

but she also plans a Thursday

evening rally in San Antonio with

Julián C astro, the former mayor of

that city, and a stop in the Los

Angeles area. Warren’s campaign

has bought TV ad time in Colora-

do and Maine.

The campaign also will air ads

starting Tuesday in Austin, San

Antonio and Oklahoma City — all

population-rich areas in Super

Tuesday s tates. The campaign also

paid f or some ads in Seattle, w here

BY CHELSEA JANES,

ANNIE LINSKEY

AND MATT VISER

LAS VEGAS — By the time results
began rolling in from Saturday’s
Nevada caucuses, Amy Klobuchar
was back in Minneapolis for a
fundraiser. Elizabeth Warren was
on her way to Seattle. Bernie Sand-
ers was addressing supporters in
El Paso. A charter jet was r eady o n
the McCarran airport tarmac to
carry Pete Buttigieg to Denver for
a late-night rally.
After weeks of trailing one an-
other from Iowa to New Hamp-
shire and o n to Nevada, the candi-
dates seeking the Democratic
presidential nomination are fac-
ing a race that transforms from a
state-by-state march after South
Carolina’s primary Saturday into
a broad national sprint for the 14
states that vote on Super Tuesday
on March 3, three days later.
The shift exponentially esca-
lates the costs for advertising and
campaign travel and already is
forcing campaigns struggling for
resources to craft divergent strat-
egies to accumulate enough dele-
gates to survive.
Adding to the u rgency for many
candidates is t he rise of S en. S and-
ers (I-Vt.), who has both the re-
sources to blanket key states with
events and advertising and unal-
loyed control of the most liberal
wing of the Democratic Party. His
early-state success — wins in New
Hampshire and Nevada and a nar-
row delegate loss in Iowa — has
left former vice president Joe
Biden, Sens. Klobuchar (D-Minn.)
and Warren (D-Mass.), and for-
mer South Bend, I nd., m ayor Butt-
igieg fighting for a pool of more-
moderate voters just as former
New York mayor Mike Bloomberg
wades into the race with his enor-
mous b udget.
For Sanders, Super Tuesday
represents an opportunity t o bury
the rest of the field with a nearly
unsurmountable p ile o f delegates.
His strong start and sprawling
campaign organization in states
voting soon has forced all the
other c andidates to try to prove to
voters they can still compete —
even if their best shot may be
second. For Warren and Klobu-
char, there is an added impera-
tive: to avoid losing their home
states on March 3.
Sanders’s money and organiza-
tion have allowed him to spend
weeks punctuating visits to early-
voting states with trips to Super
Tuesday states — most notably
delegate-heavy California, where
rival campaigns believe he will be
difficult to beat.
Sanders on Saturday held ral-
lies in El Paso and San Antonio,
and he campaigned in Te xas again
Sunday. Campaign officials are
now hoping for a strong finish in
South Carolina in addition to a
trio of delegate-rich states in Su-
per Tuesday: Te xas, North Caroli-
na and California.
“This state, maybe more than
any other s tate, has t he possibility
of transforming this country,” he
said Sunday in Houston.
The goal for Buttigieg’s cam-
paign on S uper Tuesday is to accu-
mulate enough delegates to stay
within striking distance of Sand-
ers. Campaign advisers say if he is
close Super Tuesday, states voting
March 10 and 17 — including
Michigan, Ohio, Arizona and Illi-

early voting has begun.

Warren’s campaign manager,

Roger L au, said i n a memo distrib-

uted earlier this month that she

would be able to pick u p delegates

in 108 of the roughly 150 congres-

sional or other districts that

award delegates on Super Tues-

day, meaning the campaign be-

lieves she’d garner support from

more than the minimum thresh-

old o f 15 percent in those areas. “If

you broaden that to districts

where we’re within reach of the

threshold... we’re playing in 149

districts, o r 88% of the map,” Lau

wrote.

Klobuchar had to ramp up her

national operation more hurried-

ly than her competitors, as it was

not until her third-place finish in

New Hampshire on Feb. 11 that

she had t he m omentum and mon-

ey to start hiring staffers in Super

Tuesday states. She stopped by

Colorado this week and headed to

her home state to raise money

Saturday — followed by a three-

state tour Sunday via charter

plane: Fargo to Oklahoma City to

Little R ock. ( North Dakota votes a

week after Oklahoma and Arkan-

sas, Super Tuesday s tates.)

While Buttigieg, Warren and

Klobuchar have all begun paying

attention to Super Tuesday states,

Biden remains focused on South

Carolina, where he will spend the

next week in hopes of resurrecting

his campaign with a win there

that propels him into similar Su-

per Tuesday states.

“The African American com-

munity in South Carolina can

make a judgment about who the

next president of the United

States is going to be. Literally,”

Biden told the congregation a t the

Royal Missionary Baptist Church

in Charleston Sunday. “When the

African American community de-

cides, we’re going to move on to

Super Tuesday, as they call it,

where there’s a significant African

American vote.”

Several Super Tuesday states,

including V irginia, A rkansas, Ten-

nessee, North Carolina and Ala-

bama, have substantial numbers

of black voters. But Biden has not

been advertising in those states

and, while he is already well

known, t hat lack of v isibility could

be problematic at a time when

Bloomberg is flooding the air-

waves.

Biden’s campaign has been try-

ing to pinpoint individual con-

gressional districts across the Su-

per Tuesday states, a strategy that

is complicated this year by the size

of the remaining field, which con-

jures any number of possibilities.

Several weeks ago, Biden’s cam-

paign hired Dave Huynh, a dele-

gate specialist who had earlier

worked for Sen. Kamala D. Harris

(D-Calif.).

“March is really going to matter

in the nomination process,”

Huynh said. “It’s going to be an

important month, and it will play

a very important role i n determin-

ing who the nominee is. As they

say, March matters.”

As the campaign broadens to a

much more nationalized race,

Biden’s campaign also has a legal

team m onitoring the rules in e ach

state, which could come into play

in an extremely tight race in

which every delegate m atters.

“The rules have changed dra-

matically,” said Dana Remus, the

general counsel for the Biden

campaign. “One of the tasks at

hand is to understand what the

new rules look like now.”

[email protected]

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Jenna Johnson and sean sullivan also

contributed reporting.

For campaigns, a national sprint toward Super Tuesday

Win mcnamee/agence France-presse/getty images

Broadened race

tests resources

Struggling candidates

turn focus to survival

elaine thompson/associated press

TOP: Former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, wave to supporters at a town hall on Saturday in Denver, a

populous stop in a Super Tuesday state. ABOVE: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Seattle, where early voting has begun.

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