A4| Monday, February 24, 2020 PWLC101112HTGKRFAM123456789OIXX ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaking at a rally in Houston on Sunday.
Texas is one of the states holding primaries on Super Tuesday.LARRY W. SMITH/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCKU.S. NEWS
BYKENTHOMAS
Nevada Dents
Biden Claim
Of Coalition
South Carolina has been viewed as a firewall for the Biden campaign. Mr. Biden appeared Sunday at a church in North Charleston, S.C.MATT ROURKE/ASSOCIATED PRESS1992 and Barack Obama in
2008.
Mr. Sanders leads Mr.
Trump in a poll of a general-
election matchup, although his
margin is thinner than those of
some other top contenders.
With about 88% of Nevada
precincts reporting Sunday eve-
ning, former Vice President Joe
Biden—a more moderate candi-
date who was the national poll-
ing leader for most of 2019—
was in second place, followed
by Pete Buttigieg, the former
mayor of South Bend, Ind., and
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Mas-
sachusetts. Billionaire activist
Tom Steyer looked set to place
fifth while Minnesota Sen. Amy
Klobuchar followed closely be-
hind in sixth.
Mr. Biden attended church
services on Sunday in a pre-
dominantly black neighborhood
of North Charleston, S.C. In an
acknowledgment of Mr. Sand-
ers’s strength in the three prior
contests, Mr. Biden told report-
ers: “Whoever wins this pri-
mary is going into Super Tues-
day very strongly, and I think
it’s going to be Bernie and me
going into Super Tuesday.”
According to entrance polls
in Nevada, Mr. Sanders won
nearly every demographic seg-
ment—including voters ages 17
to 64, white voters, Latino vot-
ers and first time caucus-goers.
The only segments he lost to
Mr. Biden were black voters,
voters over age 65 and voters
opposed to a single-payer
health-care system.
Mr. Sanders’s coalition will
be put to the test in the next
round of states. In his unsuc-
cessful 2016 primary bidagainst Hillary Clinton, he
struggled to bring in support
from minorities.
While Mr. Sanders trails Mr.
Biden in South Carolina, a Wall
Street Journal/NBC News poll
released Friday showed the two
men running even among black
Democratic primary voters na-
tionally, a crucial part of Mr. Bi-den’s constituency.
Mr. Biden mingled with
churchgoers who generally rep-
resent his base of support. Ken
Morris, a 68-year-old retired
member of the Marine Corps,
said he believed Mr. Sanders
couldn’t win the general election.
“There’s not too many peo-
ple who believe in socialism,”Mr. Morris said. “Joe is more
centrist. More people trust him.
You can’t beat a guy who is all
the way to the right by going
all the way to the left.”
Voters, particularly those
who are younger, say Mr. Sand-
ers’s consistency on the issues
of health care, climate change
and education is why they back
him. Some older voters who
were skeptical of Mr. Sanders
say they see he has the mo-
mentum—backed by a swell of
enthusiastic young support-
ers—to win.
Steve McCormack, a 49-
year-old business owner from
the Houston suburb of The
Woodlands, attended Mr. Sand-
ers’s Houston rally on Sunday.
Mr. McCormack voted for Flor-
ida Sen. Marco Rubio in the
2016 GOP primary and sat out
the general election.
But this cycle, Mr. McCor-
mack said is going to vote
“blue no matter who,” and he
believes Mr. Sanders may be
the nominee.
“I see it might be going this
way” toward Mr. Sanders win-
ning the primary, he said.
But some Democrats and
groups looking to boost cen-
trists aren’t ready to concede.
“The race is not over, said
Jonathan Kott, executive direc-
tor of the Big Tent Project,
which is running ads opposing
Mr. Sanders in South Carolina.
“You have a lot of people still
intherace,youhavealotof
people that could win in differ-
ent states.”
—Natalie Andrews, Chad Day,
Joshua Jamerson,
Tarini Parti and Emily Glazer
contributed to this article.turnout records.
“We have won the popular
vote in Iowa, we won the New
Hampshire primary, we won
the Nevada caucus,” Mr. Sand-
ers told supporters in Houston
on Sunday, at a rally ahead of
the March 3 Texas primary.
“Don’t tell anybody this, these
folks get very, very agitated
and nervous, we’re gonna win
here in Texas, and in November,
we’re going to defeat Trump
here in Texas.”
Mr. Sanders’s strong position
shows the appeal of running as
antiestablishment on both sides
of the aisle; Mr. Trump, after
all, ran as a GOP outsider in
- The Vermont senator’s
position would have been un-
imaginable five years ago, when
the independent, who has never
changed his party affiliation to
Democrat in the Senate,
launched his first long-shot bid
for the presidency.
But with his policy positions
long seen as far to the left of
many Democrats, many party
veterans are haunted by the
memory of liberal Sen. George
McGovern’s 49-state loss to
GOP President Richard Nixon in - A nomination of Mr.
Sanders would mark a decisive
break with the more center-left
path forged by Bill Clinton in
ContinuedfromPageOne
Sanders
Takes Reins
Of Primary
LAS VEGAS—Joe Biden has
made the case for months that
he can best appeal to black,
Latino and moderate voters.
But after the Nevada caucuses,
Bernie Sanders is the one be-
ginning to show the makings
of a broad electoral coalition.
The Vermont senator’s deci-
sive victory Saturday was pow-
ered by a diverse set of voters,
including overwhelming sup-
port among Latinos and young
people drawn to his calls for
an expansive government-run
health-care program and the
elimination of student debt.
Mr. Sanders’s ability to
build upon that coalition will
help dictate whether he is able
to prevent the former vice
president from notching a vic-
tory on Feb. 29 in South Caro-
lina, where black voters make
up more than half of the Dem-
ocratic electorate. If Mr. Sand-
ers edges Mr. Biden out there,
he could be poised for a domi-
nant run on March 3, when a
series of contests including the
diverse states of California,
Texas and North Carolina will
award about one-third of the
delegates for the nomination.
“In Nevada, we have just put
together a multigenerational,
multiracial coalition which is
not only going to win in Ne-
vada, it’s going to sweep this
country,” Mr. Sanders said in
San Antonio on Saturday night.
Mr. Biden took the stage at a
Las Vegas union hall as results
trickled in, seizing upon projec-
tions of a second-place finish—
albeit distant—that he said
would revitalize his campaign.
Beyond his connection with
diverse voters, Mr. Biden’s
electability pitch has also cen-
tered on his ability to per-
suade suburban voters and
disaffected Republicans in
general election battleground
states such as Michigan, Penn-
sylvania, and Wisconsin.
Mr. Biden’s campaign man-
ager, Greg Schultz, said that de-
spite Mr. Sanders’s victories in
New Hampshire and Nevada, he
had not been able to generate
the surges in voting that the
senator has promised would
help him beat President Trump
in the November election.
“Their campaign continues
to say, directly and indirectly,
look at turnout, look at turn-
out, look at turnout,” Mr.
Schultz said. “And in none of
the first three contests has
there been this surge in turn-
out in what they think is their
greatest asset.”
Nevada’s Democratic Party
said about 75,000 people voted
early ahead of Saturday’s pri-
maries, and turnout was ex-pected to surpass the 85,
who participated in 2016. But
it was unclear if it would ex-
ceed the 118,000 who caucused
in 2008. New Hampshire’s
turnout was higher than pri-
maries in 2008 and 2016,
while Iowa’s turnout cleared
the 2016 race there but fell
short of 2008 numbers.
Entrance polls in Nevada
showed Mr. Sanders capturing
about half of Hispanic voters
and triumphing among those
with college degrees and with-
out, union and nonunion house-
holds and every age group ex-
cept those age 65 and older,
who supported Mr. Biden. The
former vice president wasbacked by about one third of
African-American voters, giving
him an edge over Mr. Sanders,
who was backed by about one
quarter of black voters.
Maria Cardona, a Demo-
cratic strategist who isn’t affil-
iated with a presidential cam-
paign, credited Mr. Sanders
with cultivating strong ties
with the Latino community
since the 2016 election, partic-
ularly among young people and
millennials. She noted that
since the last election, four
million Latinos have turned age
18, giving Mr. Sanders a signifi-
cant advantage.
“Sanders has done a really
good job of transforming theelectability argument. And the
pendulum is swinging toward
him right now,” she said.
Mr. Biden’s message focuses
on protecting the Obamacare
health-care law he helped pass
alongside President Obama and
his work to curb gun violence.
Both issues sought to draw
bright lines with Mr. Sanders,
who has advocated for a Medi-
care-for-all health-care over-
haul that would eventually
eliminate the private insurance
system and who voted against
legislation to institute back-
ground checks for gun pur-
chases.
South Carolina has long been
viewed as a firewall for the Bi-den campaign. Depending on
his performance, it could serve
as a springboard into delegate-
rich states or Mr. Biden’s politi-
cal Waterloo as he seeks the
presidency for the third time.
“I think he does have mo-
mentum,” Mr. Biden said of
Mr. Sanders after attending
church services Sunday in pre-
dominantly black North
Charleston, S.C. But he added:
“Whoever wins this primary is
going into Super Tuesday very
strongly, and I think it’s going
to be Bernie and me going into
Super Tuesday.”
—Joshua Jamerson
in North Charleston, S.C.,
contributed to this article.Iron Works shipyard, several
prominent votes in recent years
have raised some constituents’
ire, bolstering the prospects for
Democrat Sara Gideon, the
Maine House speaker who is
expected to win her party’s
nomination to challenge Ms.
Collins for the seat.
Ms. Collins’s 2018 vote to
confirm Supreme Court Justice
Brett Kavanaugh alienated
many Maine women, polling
data and interviews show. In
President Trump’s impeach-
ment trial, while she voted with
Democrats to try to call new
witnesses, she then sided with
most Republicans in acquitting
Mr. Trump.
“I am not at all pleased with
her record of late,” said Julie
Drever, 76, an independent who
said she had supported Ms.
Collins but attended an event
Wednesday organized by Ms.
Gideon. “I am ready for a
change,” she said.
No question is more central
for Maine voters than whether
Ms. Collins’s brand of politics is
an antidote to intensifying par-tisanship—or instead is inade-
quate to the political moment.
The result could determine
control of the Senate: Demo-
crats need to win a net four
seats to capture the chamber,
or three seats if a Democrat
wins the presidency.
Ms. Collins won re-election
in 2014 by more than 30 per-
centage points, but she is theonly Republican in the state’s
four-member delegation to
Congress, and Mr. Trump lost
the presidential race here in
2016 and remains unpopular.
After a Colby College poll re-
leased last week showed a dead
heat in the Maine Senate race—
with Ms. Collins at 42% and Ms.
Gideon at 43%—many Demo-crats came to view the contest
as the fulcrum on which Senate
control turns.
“We have a path to win-
ning,” Ms. Gideon told a crowd
of more than 80 people
Wednesday in Skowhegan,
speaking of both her contest
and control of the Senate.
Ms. Collins argues she has a
long record of bipartisan ac-
complishments, including writ-
ing laws that are tailor-made
for Maine, such as a recent bill
to fund research on Lyme and
other tick-borne diseases.
“Even while she is being
criticized by extremists on ei-
ther side, she stands strong in
the center because that is
where the majority of Mainers
reside,” said Kevin Kelley, a
spokesman for her campaign.
“People are yearning for the
pragmatic, common-sense lead-
ership that defines Susan Col-
lins.”
Ms. Collins’s votes lined up
with Mr. Trump’s position 77%
of the time during the first two
years of his term, according to
data compiled by FiveThirty-Eight. So far in this Congress,
she has voted with him 41% of
the time.
“These are difficult times,”
said Richard “Fuzzy” Farns-
worth, a former high-school ed-
ucator and guidance counselor.
A Republican who is consider-
ing switching his registration to
be independent, he said he
knows that her vote to confirm
Justice Kavanaugh was conten-
tious and the vote to acquit Mr.
Trump of charges that would
remove him from office had put
Ms. Collins in a “no-win situa-
tion.” He plans to support Ms.
Collins in November.
In downtown Portland, Kris-
ten Peters had a different view.
The 34-year-old Democrat said
she had long been “incredibly
proud” of the senators Maine
produced, seeing them as inde-
pendent and fair-minded. The
description seemed to stop fit-
ting Ms. Collins in the Trump
era, she said.
“Susan Collins completely
lost me as a constituent” dur-
ing the Kavanaugh hearings,
Ms. Peters said.SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine—
In the state’s largest shopping
mall, where photos of Republi-
can Sen. Susan Collins hang on
the optometrist’s wall, local
residents who arrive early to
walk the corridors or get morn-
ing coffee tick off the ways they
say the veteran lawmaker has
done the state proud.
“She really does try to con-
template the issues and do the
best job she can,” said Robert
Stear, a 73-year-old registered
independent who lives in
nearby Cape Elizabeth. “I don’t
always agree with her final de-
cision on things, but in the
overall, I think she’s a very
good senator. I would vote for
her again.”
But this allegiance to Ms.
Collins, who is running for a
fifth term in November, is be-
ing tested. While there is broad
acknowledgment of her work in
the state, such as the more
than $16 billion she has secured
in contracts for shipbuilding
and other projects at the Bath
BYSIOBHANHUGHES
Collins’s Brand of Politics Up for Vote in Maine
TwitterInc. has removed
some accounts supportive of
Democratic presidential candi-
date Michael Bloomberg for
possible content manipulation,
in a potential setback for his
expansive social-media strategy.
The Wall Street Journal last
week reported that Mr.
Bloomberg’s campaign was hir-
ing hundreds of workers in Cal-
ifornia to spread messages sup-
porting his candidacy on their
personal social-media accounts
and by sending text messages
to their friends. Mr. Bloomberg,
a billionaire, has used his per-
sonal wealth to fund large ad-
buying sprees on TV, radio and
sites such as Facebook.
A Twitter spokeswoman
Saturday said it suspended the
accounts for violating its rules
against platform manipulation
and spam, such as efforts to
artificially boost messages on
the company’s platform.
Twitter’s rules prohibit “co-
ordinating with or compensat-
ing others to engage in artificial
engagement or amplification,
even if the people involved use
only one account.”
A spokeswoman for Mr.
Bloomberg’s campaign said
“we ask that all of our deputy
field organizers identify them-
selves as working on behalf of
the Mike Bloomberg 2020
campaign on their social-me-
dia accounts.” The campaign,
she said, was using an app
that used Twitter-approved
features so staff and volun-
teers can share messages. The
activity, she said, “was not in-
tended to mislead anyone.”
U.S. presidential candidates
on both sides of the aisle are
betting that large social-media
drives—some relying on grass-
roots support, and others on
campaign financing—will help
win voters. But the efforts also
take place at a time when
election-related activities on
social-media platforms are un-
der scrutiny after a Senate
committee report in October
criticized U.S. tech companies
for helping spread disinforma-
tion during the 2016 election.
Facebook Inc. said it would
“welcome clearer guidance”
from regulators.
Twitter removed about 70
accounts backing Mr.
Bloomberg. The move was pre-
viously reported by the Los
Angeles Times.BYBETSYMORRISSuspends
Some
Bloomberg
Backers
Several prominent
votes have bolstered
the prospects of Sara
Gideon, a Democrat.