A4 eZ sU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAy, MARCH 2 , 2020
him.
Several influential Democrats
from Super Tuesday states also
gave Biden a lift on Sunday as they
announced their support, includ-
ing former senator Barbara Boxer
of California. In V irginia, rep. J en-
nifer Wexton — who won her sub-
urban district in 2018, turning the
seat blue for the first time in 38
years — endorsed Biden, calling
him a “steady, e mpathetic l eader.”
Wexton’s nod came after other
prominent Virginia Democrats
such as Sen. Tim Kaine, former
governor Te rry mcAuliffe and
rep. robert C. “Bobby” Scott en-
dorsed Biden — a reflection of the
urgency in the party’s establish-
ment to counter Sanders, a self-de-
scribed democratic socialist.
Biden’s efforts are rooted in his
campaign’s belief that he needs to
use the burst of momentum and
attention from South Carolina to
rally Democrats to his side before
Tuesday’s elections, w hen 14 s tates
and one territory will vote to
award 34 percent of the conven-
tion delegates. Biden has lagged
behind rivals in organizing and
fundraising for m onths.
Biden attempted to make up f or
past deficiencies with a round-
robin set of television appearanc-
es in which he contrasted his cen-
trist approach with Sanders’s
pitch for a federal overhaul, which
centers on a move t oward a single-
payer health-care system.
“People aren’t looking for a rev-
olution,” Biden said on CNN’s
“State of the U nion.” “ They’re look-
ing for results.”
on NBC’s “meet the Press,” the
former vice president boasted of
the gains already seen by his cam-
paign, which has struggled since
its s tart to keep p ace with better-fi-
nanced candidates.
“A lot of supporters stepped up
the last 24 hours; we raised over
$5 million,” B iden said.
While Saturday’s South Caroli-
na’s primary was a thunderclap —
Biden decisively won the contest,
in which African American voters
had a significant say for the first
time this election season — it pro-
vided an affirmation of his candi-
dacy rather than a guarantee of
coming success. S anders i s polling
strongly in many Super Tuesday
battlegrounds, and former New
York mayor mike Bloomberg has
spent hundreds of millions of dol-
lars on advertising in those states.
“This race is a long way from
being over and is as competitive as
ever,” said Shelia A. Huggins, a
member of the Democratic Na-
tional Committee from North Car-
olina, w hich votes on Tuesday. “Joe
is still in the game. But Democrat-
ic voters here and everywhere are
more strategic than decided at t his
point. Everyone wants to beat
[President] Trump. What they’re
debating is just how much change
they want t o see.”
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (mass.)
cAmpAIgn from A
Biden gets
Tuesday lift
from key
Democrats
BY ANNIE LINSKEYSen. Elizabeth Warren (D-
mass.) and former New York may-
or mike Bloomberg have long
treated each other as foils.
But the looming coronavirus
health crisis has revealed a core
similarity between the senator and
the billionaire: Both are using this
moment to paint themselves as
highly competent technocrats
who would use data to guide poli-
cy.
over the weekend, both candi-
dates seized on the virus to draw a
sharp contrast with President
Trump, excoriating the adminis-
tration’s response to the epidemic
and highlighting what they would
do differently.
These pitches come just days
before Super Tuesday, which will
be a major t est for both campaigns.
Warren hasn’t won many dele-
gates in the Democratic nominat-
ing process and is hoping to show
her candidacy is still viable.
Bloomberg, meanwhile, will be on
the ballot for the first time after
spending nearly a billion dollars
on his campaign.
Both will begin feeling signifi-
cant pressure to exit the race if
they can’t do well this week.
Bloomberg’s coronavirus re-
sponse came in the form of a taped
three-minute a ddress aired on two
networks Sunday night, thanks to
a $1.5 million ad buy.
In the spot, released Saturday,
he laid out how he would combat
the virus as president.
“A t times like this, it is the job of
the president to reassure the pub-
lic that he or she is taking all the
necessary steps to protect the
health and well-being of every citi-
zen,” Bloomberg said.
“The public wants to know their
leader is trained, informed and
respected. When a problem arises,
they want someone in charge who
can marshal facts and expertise to
confront the problem,” he said.
Bloomberg also referred to his
past accomplishments, noting
that he became mayor of New York
just months after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. It was evidence, he said,
that he knows how to lead during a
crisis.
And he reminded viewers of his
connection to the Bloomberg
School of Public Health at Johns
Hopkins University, an institution
that was named for him after he
gave a $289 million donation in
2001.
Bloomberg’s p lan to address the
virus includes inviting doctors
who’ve b een pushed out of govern-
ment back to their old jobs, undo-
ing the Trump administration’s
cuts to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and addi-
tional federal funds to prepare
hospitals to treat epidemics.
Warren’s c omments on the issue
came Saturday, when she veered
from her stump speech to focus on
her proposals.“This is a time for honest leader-
ship that respects science, that
draws on serious experts and that
delivers real results,” Warren told a
crowd of about 2,000 people in
Houston after finishing in fifth
place in South Carolina.
She ticked through her résumé,
highlighting how at major crisis
moments she has dug into data
and enacted solutions, including
her research into why middle-class
families are going bankrupt, hertime grilling regulators when she
sat on a panel overseeing how the
federal bailout money was spent
and her leadership o f the Consum-
er financial Protection Bureau in
the wake of the 2008 financial
crisis.
“This moment is a reminder of
what qualities we need in a presi-
dent — and what qualities are so
sorely lacking in the one we have,”
Warren said. “I’ve been at the cen-
ter of this kind of crisis before.”Warren released her first pro-
posal to address the coronavirus
last week and was quick to point
out that she was offering a plan
before any of the other candidates
— and even before the White
House.
on Saturday, she said she will
soon release more details. But she
previewed her ideas, saying she
wants the federal government to
provide all Americans with free
screening for the virus and freevaccines if one is developed.
Anyone quarantined at a medi-
cal facility should not have to pay
huge medical bills, she said,
though it’s not clear who would
foot the expense. All workers
should receive paid time off if they
must stay home because they are
sick. And she wants the federal
reserve to offer low-interest loans
to companies that provide that
benefit to workers.
Warren called for a stimulus
program to help keep the economy
humming, even as the stock mar-
ket falls and Americans are shop-
ping less. She also used the mo-
ment to contrast her style to the
other candidates, including taking
a dig at Bloomberg and his TV ad.
“Let’s be blunt,” she said. “This
crisis demands more than a bil-
lionaire mayor who believes that
since he’s rich enough to buy net-
work airtime to pretend he’s the
president, that entitles him to be
president.”
She also turned on former vice
president Joe Biden, who pre-
vailed overwhelmingly in the
South Carolina primary Saturday,
saying the “crisis demands more
than a former vice president so
eager to cut deals with mitch mc-
Connell and the republicans that
he’ll trade good ideas for bad ones.”
And she referred to Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.), saying “this crisis
demands m ore than a senator who
has good ideas, but whose 30-year
track record s hows he consistently
calls for things he fails to get done
and consistently o pposes things h e
nevertheless fails to stop.”
[email protected]Bloomberg, Warren pitch data-driven plans to fight virus
toNI L. sANdys/tHe WAsHINgtoN Post
Former new York mayor mike Bloomberg waits near Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-mass.) to cross the
Edmund pettus Bridge, commemorating the anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala., on march 1.Candidates seek to show
themselves campaigning
on science, competenceto drop out is deeply personal as
well as political. With obama on
the sidelines and former nominee
Hillary Clinton also quiet, there
was also open debate about w ho, if
anyone, h ad enough political c api-
tal t o force a n exit.
Warren, for her p art, showed no
signs of relenting. Her campaign
announced that she raised
$29.3 million last month, more
than doubling her January haul
thanks to a boost from her well-re-
viewed debate turn in Nevada —
and the campaign increased its
advertising spending in Super
Tuesday states to $2.4 million. A
pro-Warren super PAC is also
spending millions.
Klobuchar’s aides and confi-
dants said she was campaigning
hard ahead of Super Tuesday and
felt good about her chances in her
home state.
“I want to go everywhere,”
Klobuchar told a Utah television
station on Sunday.
Buttigieg on Sunday met with
former president Jimmy Carter
near Carter’s home in Plains, Ga.
Carter told reporters, “He doesn’t
know what he’s going to do after
South Carolina.”
Buttigieg replied, “Every day,
we’ll do the m ath.”
Hours later, Buttigieg dropped
out before a rapturous crowd in
South Bend that chanted “2024!
2024!”
“The truth is that the path has
narrowed to a close for our candi-
dacy, i f not for our c ause,” h e said.
[email protected]sean sullivan, Cleve Wootson, dave
Weigel, Isaac stanley-Becker and Matt
Viser contributed to this report.win, bring along a Senate and k eep
a House, t he House of representa-
tives, but who can then get some-
thing done,” B iden said on CNN.
Sanders, meanwhile, is roaring
before thousands at rallies and is
counting on his grass-roots orga-
nizing in states such as California
and Texas, which he has been
building since his insurgent 2016
campaign.
Sanders raised $46.5 million in
february, his presidential cam-
paign said Sunday, a huge sum
that could help sustain him in a
lengthy battle for the nomination.
The senator from Vermont won
nominating contests in Nevada
and New Hampshire last month
before placing a distant second in
South Carolina.
Sanders, who has criticized
Biden for his past backing of mili-
tary intervention in Iraq and his
support of free trade, attacked
Biden on Sunday as an ally of the
wealthy and centrist Democratic
establishment that he is trying to
overhaul.
Speaking at a rally in San Jose
on Sunday, Sanders said: “A t a
time when the American people
are sick and tired of endless wars,
of the terrible death rate we have
seen from these wars, the trillions
of dollars we have spent on these
wars, please do not forget Joe
Biden v oted f or the war in Iraq.”
“We’ve got to be honest,” Sand-
ers told the crowd. “Which cam-
paign can beat Trump?” His sup-
porters chanted “ Bernie! Bernie!”
most national Democrats
treaded carefully as they ap-
proached the candidates and se-
nior aides to struggling cam-
paigns, knowing that the decisionand p ick up t hat obama legacy.
Sanders’s campaign aides say
that he is ready to make gains with
younger, more liberal African
American voters in states such as
North Carolina and have argued
that South Carolina is older and
more moderate than most of the
states voting on Tuesday.
“Wait until you see what hap-
pens in other states,” said Sanders
deputy campaign manager Ari
rabin-Havt. “Transmuting a pop-
ulation, one state’s population to
every state in the country, is a
mistake.”
Bloomberg has attempted to
make inroads w ith African Ameri-
can voters but has encountered
continued problems over his past
support of stop-and-frisk, a police
strategy that opponents say is a
form of racial profiling. Before
announcing his candidacy, he
apologized f or defending the p rac-
tice.
As Bloomberg spoke Sunday in
Selma, Ala., at B rown Chapel AmE
Church, about 10 people stood and
silently turned their backs to him.
The incident caused a stir in the
church, but Bloomberg continued
his remarks without interruption.
others continued to listen, some
cheering and applauding.
Biden and Sanders are now
running near polar opposite cam-
paigns. The once-ailing Biden op-
eration i s trying t o ride t he wave of
momentum and attention as he
reminds voters of his work along-
side obama and warns them o f the
perils of backing Sanders.
“I have gotten major, major
things done. I’m able to cross the
aisle and get t hings done. And so I
think it’s about who can not onlycording t o three people briefed on
the talks who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity to speak frank-
ly.
In t he arcane process that Dem-
ocrats use to pick nominees, dele-
gates are awarded proportionally
to any candidate who hits a
threshold of 15 percent o f the vote.
Those rules put a premium on
candidates who have broad sup-
port to win statewide, which de-
termines a portion of the dele-
gates, a nd also w in individual con-
gressional or state Senate dis-
tricts, which account for the rest.
And the setup benefits campaigns
that can pinpoint the areas where
they can either win a few extra
delegates — o r potentially deny an
opponent from d oing so.
fourteen states and one U.S.
territory will hold nominating
contests on Tuesday, to award
about one-third of the 1,991 dele-
gates needed to clinch the nomi-
nation. Tuesday’s states also in-
clude Arkansas, maine, Utah,
oklahoma and Colorado.
After w inning 60 percent of the
African American vote in South
Carolina, Biden’s Super Tuesday
outlook is best in states where
those voters represent a high per-
centage of the D emocratic elector-
ate, such as Alabama.
“once things start settling,
you’ll see that Joe Biden will over-
whelmingly take more delegates,”
frank Love, the Arkansas state
House minority leader, predicted
Sunday, as Biden’s wife, Jill, cam-
paigned in North Little rock. The
core reason, he added, was that
Biden was the partner of “the
greatest president of our genera-
tion” a nd i s ready to defeat Trumpand Amy Klobuchar (minn.) and
rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii re-
mained in the Democratic race on
Sunday night. But throughout the
day, there was pressure on Butt-
igieg and K lobuchar, i n particular,
to consider ending their bids after
they struggled in South Carolina
and the Nevada caucuses to ex-
pand their appeal among minority
voters. Liberal investor To m Stey-
er dropped out late Saturday.
Those conversations — a flurry
of phone calls and meetings —
rippled with political calculations
as top Democrats mapped out the
brutal stretch ahead.
for many Biden allies,
Bloomberg — the billionaire cen-
trist whose name will appear on
ballots f or the first time Tuesday —
remains the biggest headache,
and they are hopeful that he may
soon decide to bow out. on Sun-
day, they passed around a clip
from mSNBC in which David
Plouffe, Barack obama’s 2 008
campaign manager, said, “The re-
ality is Bloomberg needed Biden
to lose South Carolina to have any
chance.”
“Bloomberg is the one in focus
because he has the r esources t o go
on indefinitely and compete and
divide the center-left vote with
Biden,” said David Axelrod, a se-
nior adviser in the obama White
House.
Although Biden’s campaign
would welcome a narrowed field,
several allies are also informally
telling allies of Klobuchar and
Warren to consider staying in the
race until Tuesday night, to deny
Sanders a major delegate haul in
the Super Tuesday states of min-
nesota and massachusetts, ac-toNI L. sANdys/tHe WAsHINgtoN Post
Former vice president Joe Biden is welcomed by Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.) at a church in Selma, Ala., during a commemoration of the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.