{"id":2455125,"date":"2020-02-27T15:35:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321700"},"modified":"2020-02-27T15:35:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:35:58","slug":"democrats-focus-on-super-tuesday-even-as-s-carolina-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/democrats-focus-on-super-tuesday-even-as-s-carolina-looms\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats focus on Super Tuesday even as S. Carolina looms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets people at a campaign event in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020.<\/strong>
AP Photo\/Gerald Herbert<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) \u2014 Bernie Sanders will swing through North Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts in the coming days. Elizabeth Warren will make stops in Texas and Arkansas. Amy Klobuchar will be in Tennessee and Virginia.<\/p>\n

The South Carolina primary is just two days away, but the race is quickly going national as candidates pivot to the 14 states that vote on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The move is in part a recognition of Joe Biden\u2019s strength in South Carolina, with most of the focus on the margin of his victory and who might come in second place. But it\u2019s also an effort to tap into the hundreds of delegates at stake in the \u201cSuper Tuesday\u201d contests. About a third of the delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination will be on the table.<\/p>\n

The tight turnaround between Saturday\u2019s primary in South Carolina and the contests that follow on Tuesday is creating a hectic stretch for campaigns.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks at a campaign event with performer John Legend, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, at Charleston Music Hall in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo\/Patrick Semansky)<\/strong>
Elizabeth Warren<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhat happens in South Carolina does matter, mostly because of what the coverage is going to be over the three days leading up to Super Tuesday. If someone seems out of the running, they\u2019re going to lose value,\u201d said Achim Bergmann, a Democratic strategist whose firm does work in a number of Super Tuesday states. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough deal for the candidates who are perceived to be at the lower rungs at the moment to figure out where can they get some juice.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg has sought to bypass the traditional early voting states including South Carolina to focus exclusively on the Super Tuesday states. But even he had to balance the competing demands as he qualified for Tuesday\u2019s debate in Charleston. He went back to New York after the debate only to return to South Carolina the next day to appear at a CNN town hall.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg will be in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina \u2014 all Super Tuesday states \u2014 over the next several days.<\/p>\n

The strains on some candidates are evident. Pete Buttigieg hopscotched from Nevada on Saturday to Colorado and South Carolina by Sunday morning. He then hit Virginia before returning to South Carolina.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks with members of the media after a Democratic presidential primary debate, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo\/Matt Rourke)<\/strong>
Pete Buttigieg<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But even a meticulously crafted schedule can fall apart. Buttigieg had planned to swing down to Florida, which votes later in March, for three private fundraisers Wednesday. He abruptly canceled the events and a public campaign stop in the Miami area because of illness. His aides said he had flu-like symptoms.<\/p>\n

Buttigeig met with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and did media interviews in Washington, D.C., before returning to South Carolina on Thursday for another round of campaigning.<\/p>\n

Jim Messina, a top aide on both of Barack Obama\u2019s presidential campaigns, said Buttigieg is in a bind when it comes to the South Carolina-Super Tuesday dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a big deal\u201d for his campaign if Buttigieg doesn\u2019t perform in South Carolina, he said, because \u201cmore people like me are going to say on TV he can\u2019t get the minority vote, and that\u2019s not helpful to his narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, strategists in key Super Tuesday states say voters there are watching to see what happens in South Carolina before they make up their minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who defies expectations and does better than you expect, it just builds a stronger narrative for them,\u201d said Matt Angle, a Texas Democratic strategist.<\/p>\n

Texas offers the second-biggest delegate pot on Super Tuesday, with 228 pledged delegates, and Buttigieg and Biden are expected to campaign there after South Carolina votes. But other candidates, including Sanders, Warren and Bloomberg, have all made stops there this week.<\/p>\n

Biden wasn\u2019t doing much outside South Carolina, where his flagging campaign is seeking its first win of the primary season. Likewise, billionaire Tom Steyer has essentially hunkered down in the state, while Bloomberg, who participated in the debate, has all but ignored the early four contests and instead will campaign across a handful of Southern states that vote next week.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., shakes hands with a supporter after a roundtable discussion on voting rights at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro, N.C., on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. (Khadejeh Nikouyeh\/News & Record via AP)<\/strong>
Election 2020 klobuchar<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Buttigieg was not alone in trying to stir fundraising events into the mix. Klobuchar held a fundraiser in Charleston on Monday and was to duck out Thursday for one in North Carolina and another Friday in Tennessee, along with campaign events in both states over the two-day stretch.<\/p>\n

And Sanders had plans to dash up to North Carolina, a conveniently situated March 3 primary state, on Wednesday and again Thursday, when he also plans to cross into Virginia. While other candidates are making their final pitches in South Carolina, Sanders was also scheduled to make two campaign stops in Massachusetts, home turf for Warren and a critical Super Tuesday state.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult time, logistically, to try to balance all this,\u201d acknowledged Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver. \u201cSuddenly, now you have contests all across the country, and candidates just have to do the best they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaver underscored the stakes for candidates who head into Super Tuesday unprepared to compete, noting that in 2016, Hillary Clinton\u2019s delegate lead coming out of the day\u2019s contests was tough to overcome.<\/p>\n

But for much of the field, the Super Tuesday fight isn\u2019t just about racking up delegates \u2014 it\u2019s about survival.<\/p>\n

\u201cCandidates who just haven\u2019t moved by Super Tuesday \u2014 41% of the delegates are gone. You\u2019re not really going to have a chance at the nomination. Your money\u2019s going to dry up very quickly,\u201d Messina said. \u201cI think you\u2019ll soon after see some of these also-ran candidates out of this race.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets people at a campaign event in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020.AP Photo\/Gerald Herbert CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) \u2014 Bernie Sanders will swing through North Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts in the coming days. Elizabeth Warren will make stops in Texas and Arkansas. Amy Klobuchar will be in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 13:13:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}