The Wall Street Journal - 22.02.2020 - 23.02.2020

A4| Saturday/Sunday, February 22 - 23, 2020 PWLC101112HTGKRFAM123456789OIXX *** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

POLITICS

WASHINGTON

WIRE

Dispatches from the

Nation’s Capital

BYGABRIELT.RUBIN

seen since last summer. Ahead

of the contests in Iowa and

New Hampshire, he burned

through $14 million in cam-

paign money last month—a

move that paid off for him

with strong finishes in both

states.

Mr. Buttigieg acknowledged

a cash crunch in a fundraising

email on Thursday, saying he

must raise $13 million by Su-

per Tuesday to stay competi-

tive. Delegate-rich California

and Texas, large, expensive

states in terms of candidate

travel and advertising, are in

the mix that day.

By contrast, Mr. Sanders, a

self-described democratic so-

cialist, began February with as

much money in the bank as the

three moderates combined,

about $17 million. The Vermont

senator is only pursuing online

contributions, often small do-

nors, and again raised more

money than any other Demo-

cratic candidate, $25 million.

Ms. Warren, a Massachu-

setts senator who has also fo-

cused on small donations on-

line, raised more than $

million in January—but spent

nearly $23 million and started

February with just $2.3 million

on hand. Her campaign also

ILLINOIS DEMOCRATSwant to
move on from the saga of Rod
Blagojevich. Roland Burris, the
longtime Illinois politician who
then-Gov. Blagojevich ultimately
appointed to Barack Obama’s
former Senate seat in 2008,
says he supports President
Trump’s decision to commute
the ex-governor’s sentence.
Blagojevich served eight years in
federal prison for trying to sell
that Senate seat, among other

crimes. “The sentence was ex-

cessive for his wrongdoing. He

shouldn’t have gotten 14 years,”

Burris said in an interview.

Burris said he tried to get

Blagojevich’s sentence reduced

earlier, especially after the Su-

preme Court overturned the cor-

ruption conviction of former Vir-

ginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell in

a landmark case in 2016. Former

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel—

who succeeded Blagojevich in

Congress in his North Side dis-

trict—said Blagojevich’s “children

have suffered long enough.” Cur-

rent Mayor Lori Lightfoot also

sympathized with the family, but

criticized Trump for “playing fa-

vorites” with people convicted of

crimes. Current Illinois Gov. J.B.

Pritzker criticized the move, say-

ing he deeply believes the com-

mutation “sends the wrong mes-

sage at the wrong time.”

Burris doesn’t regret taking

his appointment by Blagojevich,

despite the political and media

firestorm that followed: “I as-

pired to become a United States

senator—that was on my bucket

list,” said Burris, who has built

an elaborate tomb for himself

next to the grave of Olympian

Jesse Owens in a Chicago ceme-

tery. The stone lists his accom-

plishments under the epitaph

“Trail Blazer.”

WAR POWERSresolution is set

for another vote in the House,

again testing Republican willing-

ness to buck the administration.

Eight Republicans joined all

Democrats in the Senate to pass

a resolution last week requiring

Mr. Trump to seek congressional

authorization before taking fur-

ther military action against Iran.

A Jan. 9 House vote on the is-

sue lured just three Republican

House members. But the rela-

tively strong showing of Republi-

can senators could prompt more

defections from the party line.

Last year, a similar vote on

limiting the president’s military

powers in Iran passed the House

but didn’t muster the necessary

support in the Senate. The reso-

lution won’t survive a presiden-

tial veto, and President Trump

has made clear that he sees a

vote for it as a personal affront.

ANOTHER UNIONfeud awaits

Sen. Bernie Sanders in the cru-

cial California primary, where re-

cent polls show him leading the

Democratic pack. The largest of

the unions representing workers

for PG&E Corp., the embattled

utility, is attacking Sanders for

his support for a $100 billion

state takeover of the company.

The International Brotherhood of

Electrical Workers Local 1245,

which represents 12,000 PG&E

workers, accused Sanders of

supporting a “bird-brained idea”

that would “raise energy rates,

do nothing to improve theenvi-

ronment” and take away state

funds better used for other pri-

orities.

Sanders’s campaign re-

sponded that “greed and corrup-

tion” at PG&E have led to the

decline of California’s electrical

grid, which sparked disastrous

fires in 2018. The company says

it has “made tremendous prog-

ress” to improve fire safety in

recent years. Sanders and his

supporters have been sparring

with the powerful culinary work-

ers union local in Nevada over

his Medicare for All proposal,

which union leaders there say

could jeopardize the hard-won

health-care plan they negotiated

with employers.

CENSUS BUREAUmoves to

shore up its information-technol-

ogy systems, which the Govern-

ment Accountability Office calls

“high risk” because of unresolved

management issues related to

capacity and cybersecurity. Con-

cerned that census-takers could

flood the system and cause it to

crash, the bureau planned to use

a third-party system to handle

five times the expected load of

120,000 concurrent users. Then,

after testing the network proto-

col, they decided to make that

system the backup, and make an

in-house system its primary op-

tion. “Redundancy allows us to

have a backup system should

there be any reason to swap

one of these systems out,” the

bureau said.

VIEWS OF RACE RELATIONS

have hit an all-time low among

black voters while improving

among whites, a new Wall

Street Journal/NBC News poll

finds. Perceptions hit a low

among all respondents in 2016,

the polling found. They have

brightened since then, even after

the 2018 white supremacist

march in Charlottesville, Va., that

left a counter-protester dead.

But the improvement has been

driven by white and to a lesser

extent by Hispanic voters. Today,

48% of white voters say race re-

lations are good or fairly good,

compared with 31% of Hispanic

and 15% of black voters.

PRUNE JUICEisn’t a major U.S.

import, especially from Europe:

the U.S. didn’t import any of it

from the Continent in 2019. But

perhaps that will change after

the U.S. removed European

prune juice from its list of prod-

ucts subject to 25% tariff rates

on Friday.

MINOR MEMOS:Ukrainian Pres-

ident Volodymyr Zelensky says

that as an actor he always

dreamed of becoming famous in

America, and now he is, “but not

the way I wanted.” ... Blagojevich

conducts press conference with

a bleeding face after nicking it

while shaving, showing how out

of practice he is with normal ra-

zors. ... Rock star Neil Young,

who recently became a U.S. citi-

zen, voices support for Sanders,

saying “his initials are BS. Not

his policies.”

tapped into $400,000 of a $

million line of credit, her filing

shows. The campaign said in a

statement that it took out the

money “in case it was neces-

sary for cash flow purposes

around the Iowa caucuses, but

it ultimately wasn’t necessary.”

The campaign said it got a

boost of money in its end-of-

January fundraising appeals.

Her adversarial approach to

Mr. Bloomberg at Wednesday’s

debate also invigorated the

senator’s fundraising and

helped her collect $17 million

so far this month, her cam-

paign said, its record so far.

Still, her campaign has only

spent about $300,000 on Su-

per Tuesday ads.

Ms. Klobuchar’s weaker

fundraising in January—she

raised $5.5 million while spend-

ing $7.6 million—came before

she rode a strong debate per-

formance in New Hampshire to

a third-place finish there. Ear-

lier this week, the Minnesota

senator’s campaign said she

had raised more than $12 mil-

lion since that Feb. 7 debate.

The Biden campaign, which

spent about $11 million last

month while raising almost $

million, hasn’t publicly set any

fundraising goals for the

month or provided updates

about its recent fundraising,

although the former vice presi-

dent has said he is raising

about $400,000 a day online.

His candidacy is receiving

financial backup from a super

PAC called Unite the Country,

which raised more than $4 mil-

lion last month and spent

slightly less than that. Most of

its money went to TV ads in

Iowa, federal filings and data

from Kantar/CMAG show.

Until recently, Messrs. Biden

and Buttigieg were the only

top-tier Democratic candidates

receiving help from super

PACs. But in the past few days,

outside groups have popped up

to help Ms. Klobuchar and Ms.

Warren, who had previously

sworn off such aid.

skip the February states for

the delegate-rich contests of

March 3 and beyond.

After Nevada, candidates will

quickly pivot to the Feb. 29

South Carolina primary, which

has long been a focus of Mr. Bi-

den because of his support

among African-American vot-

ers. But a new Wall Street Jour-

nal/NBC News poll released Fri-

day showed the former vice

president now running about

even with Mr. Sanders among

that bloc, a sign of caution for

his overall standing.

The disparity in campaign

spending shows how the 2020

Democrats poured resources

into the four February states,

and the campaigns could still

make significant purchases if

they can raise more money

with, say, strong debate per-

formances.

But several candidates will

have to rush to compete with

Mr. Sanders and the deep-pock-

eted self-funders Mr.

Bloomberg and billionaire Tom

Steyer. Mr. Biden had just over

$7 million in the bank, Mr. Butt-

igieg less than $7 million and

Ms. Klobuchar less than $3 mil-

lion heading into this month.

Those candidates are rely-

ing in part on traditional fund-

raising events attended by

wealthier donors—a style of fi-

nancing that is increasingly

hard to maintain as the pri-

mary voting demands more of

the candidates’ time.

Mr. Buttigieg, the former

mayor of South Bend, Ind., and

a prolific fundraiser for much

of the race, raised just over $

million in January, a slower

fundraising clip than he has

Continued from Page One

Democrats

Face Money

Problems

will represent a sizable chunk

of the electorate in states vot-

ing in March, including in the

delegate-rich Deep South.

Nevada, the first racially di-

verse state to hold a nominat-

ing contest in this cycle, holds

its caucuses on Saturday.

The survey found reserva-

tions among black Democrats

about Sen. Amy Klobuchar of

Minnesota and former South

Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Butt-

igieg, who fared well in Iowa

and New Hampshire.

Both drew single-digit sup-

port when black Democratic

primary voters were asked

their top choice for nominee.

“Both candidates have sim-

ply not made a connection

with African-Americans,” said

Bill McInturff, a Republican

pollster who conducted the

survey with Democrat Jeff

Horwitt. He said it was hard to

imagine that either would be

“active players anywhere

where African-Americans are a

chunk of the vote.”

Black voters showed higher

levels of enthusiasm for Sen.

Elizabeth Warren of Massachu-

setts and Michael Bloomberg,

the former New York mayor,

but lower levels than for

Messrs. Biden and Sanders.

Mr. Buttigieg and other Dem-

ocratic presidential candidates,

as well as black elected leaders

and activists, have pushed back

forcefully on the notion that Mr.

Buttigieg is struggling with

black voters because he is

openly gay. A strong majority—

some 62%—of black Democratic

primary voters said they would

be enthusiastic about or com-

fortable with a gay or lesbian

candidate, though that was

lower than 83% among all Dem-

ocratic primary voters.

For the general election, the

poll showed signs that Presi-

dent Trump can improve upon

his 2016 margins among black

voters, depending on whom

the Democrats nominate to

run against him.

When matched against ei-

ther Mr. Biden or Mr. Sanders,

the president’s black support

is comparable to the high-sin-

gle-digit share he got in 2016.

But against Ms. Klobuchar

or Mr. Buttigieg, Mr. Trump

could do better, according to

the poll, which found the pres-

ident earning 15% or more of

the black vote when going

head-to-head with either.

Mr. Trump drew 11% sup-

port among black voters when

matched against Ms. Warren

in a Journal/NBC News poll in

January.

Black support is slipping for Democratic candidate Joe Biden,

seen speaking on Friday in Las Vegas.

MATT YORK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Joe Biden has lost a sub-

stantial part of his black-voter

support and is now running

about even with Bernie Sand-

ers among those voters, a new

Wall Street Journal/NBC News

poll has found.

The survey offered a cau-

tion sign for Mr. Biden just as

the Democratic primary race

moves into states with more

racial diversity than Iowa and

New Hampshire, two largely

white states that held the first

nominating contests.

Mr. Biden has long bet that

his strong support among

black voters would be the

linchpin of his candidacy.

Journal/NBC News surveys in

2019 found that about half of

black voters who said they

would participate in Demo-

cratic primaries named Mr. Bi-

den as their top choice for

nominee. In the new poll, both

he and Mr. Sanders had sup-

port from just under one-third

of black voters.

The poll underscored that

many other Democratic candi-

dateshavealongwaytogoin

winning support from black

voters and not much time to

do so, now that the pace of

voting will soon accelerate.

Black Americans make up

about 60% of the party’s vot-

ers in South Carolina, which

holds its primary Feb. 29, and

BYJOSHUAJAMERSON

Biden Falters in Poll of Black Voters

and whether he would commit

to releasing women who

signed them so they could

speak publicly. Mr. Bloomberg

didn’t make the commitment

on the debate stage.

“None of them accuse me of

doing anything, other than

maybe they didn’t like a joke I

told,” he said on Wednesday.

“There’s agreements between

two parties that wanted to

keep it quiet, and that’s up to

them. They signed those

agreements, and we’ll live

with it.”

“I’ve said we’re not going to

get—to end these agreements

because they were made con-

sensually, and they have every

right to expect that they will

stay private,” Mr. Bloomberg

later added.

Bonnie Josephs, a lawyer

whose former client filed a

lawsuit against Mr.

Bloomberg, said she was glad

that Mr. Bloomberg had been

“forced to do it.”

“The public has a right to

know if he’s running for presi-

dent,” Ms. Josephs said.

Ms. Josephs represented

Sekiko Sakai Garrison, who

signed a nondisclosure agree-

ment after suing Mr.

Bloomberg and his company in

1998 for “wrongful and unlaw-

ful discrimination.” Ms. Garri-

son alleged that when Mr.

Bloomberg learned she was

pregnant, he told her to “kill

it.”

A senior campaign aide

confirmed that Ms. Garrison

would be one of the women

released from the agreement.

Mr. Bloomberg’s represen-

tatives have denied the allega-

tions in the lawsuit. Mr.

Bloomberg has also said he

passed a lie-detector test vali-

dating his denial.

Democratic presidential

candidate Michael Bloomberg

said he would release from

their nondisclosure agree-

ments three women who made

allegations against him in law-

suits over the last three de-

cades.

“If any of them want to be

released from their NDA so

that they can talk about those

allegations, they should con-

tact the company and they’ll

be given a release,” Mr.

Bloomberg said Friday, refer-

ring to his financial-data com-

pany, Bloomberg LP.

“I’ve done a lot of reflecting

on this issue over the past few

days and I’ve decided that for

as long as I’m running the

company, we won’t offer confi-

dentiality agreements to re-

solve claims of sexual harass-

ment or misconduct going

forward,” the former New

York City mayor said.

He also tweeted Friday that

the same would apply to his

campaign.

Mr. Bloomberg didn’t pro-

vide any other information

about the women. That is be-

cause the agreements are still

in place, and it’s up to them to

decide if they want to be re-

leased, said an aide to Mr.

Bloomberg’s campaign.

Several women have filed

lawsuits against Mr.

Bloomberg and Bloomberg LP

alleging sexual discrimination

and harassment over the

years.

The statement comes after

Mr. Bloomberg repeatedly was

pressed by Massachusetts Sen.

Elizabeth Warren in Wednes-

day’s Democratic presidential

debate about the agreements

BYTARINIPARTI

ANDKATIEHONAN

Bloomberg to Release

Women From NDAs

Candidate Cash

BernieSandersstartedthis

monthwiththemost

campaigncashofany

Democratraisingmoney

fortheirpresidentialbids.

Cash on hand as of Jan. 31

Source: Federal Election Commission

Note: Does not include Michael Bloomberg

and Tom Steyer, who are self-funding their

campaigns.

Sanders

Biden

Buttigieg

Klobuchar

Warren

Gabbard

$16

7

6

2

2

2

In millions

Biden

Klobuchar

Sanders

Men Women

15% 78%

27 64

10 81

2% 96%

687

5 92

Margin of error

Source: Wall Street Journal/NBC News telephone poll of 108 African American registered voters,

conducted Feb. 14-18.

Buttigieg

29 59 687

Percentage of African Americans who would vote forTrumpvs.

selectDemocraticcandidates

WASHINGTON—U.S. offi-
cials have informed Sen. Ber-
nie Sanders that Russia is ac-
tively trying to support his
campaign for the Democratic
nomination as part of Mos-
cow’s broader efforts to inter-
fere in the 2020 election, ac-
cording to two people familiar
with the matter.
President Trump and a
small number of lawmakers
have been briefed on the same
intelligence, the people said.
The classified FBI briefing
wasn’t of the type routinely
given to presidential cam-
paigns about election security,
those people said. It was given
in reaction to intelligence con-
sidered compelling enough
that Mr. Sanders needed to be
alerted, one of the people said.
But the intelligence suggested
that the Russian effort to bol-
ster Mr. Sanders hasn’t ap-
proached the scale or scope of
operations to support Mr.
Trump’s campaign in 2016, the
person said.
The Washington Post ear-
lier reported Mr. Sanders re-
ceived a briefing that Russia
was seeking to support him in
the primary.
Speaking to reporters Fri-
day, Mr. Sanders acknowl-
edged a briefing had taken
place but said it wasn’t clear
what role Russia was attempt-
ing to play in the election.
“We were told that Russia
and maybe other countries
were getting involved in the
campaign,” Mr. Sanders told
reporters in Bakersfield, Calif.
“And look, here is the message
to Russia, ‘Stay out of the
American election.’ ”
Mr. Sanders, who has been
criticized for online vitriol
some of his supporters have
directed against his opponents,
also said in a statement that it
was possible “ugly stuff” that
has been attributed to his
campaign was actually coming
from fake internet accounts.
The Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation and
the Department of Homeland
Security declined to comment.
The reports emerged a
month after the briefing on
the day before the Nevada
caucuses. Mr. Sanders is cur-
rently leading his Democratic
rivals in national polls follow-
ing a first-place finish in the
New Hampshire primary this
month, and polls suggested he
was positioned for a strong
finish in Nevada.
“I’ll let you guess, about
one day before the Nevada
caucuses, why do you think it
came out?” Mr. Sanders asked.
Last week, intelligence offi-
cials told President Trump and
lawmakers on the House Intel-
ligence Committee about Rus-
sia’s apparent preference to
have Mr. Trump re-elected, ac-
cording to people familiar
with the matter. During an
Oval Office meeting Mr. Trump
lashed out at Joseph Maguire,
his acting director of national
intelligence until he was re-
placed this week, because he
was irate that lawmakers re-
ceived the information first,
the people said.

BYDUSTINVOLZ

Sanders

Is Warned

Of Russian

Meddling