The ground started to shift in Joe Biden's favor even before his landslide win in South Carolina.
Two days before the make-or-break primary, Monmouth University released a poll showing the former vice president with a staggering 20-point lead. That followed a critical endorsement from powerful congressional leader Jim Clyburn. Biden's campaign — for months beset by a comedy of errors, low enthusiasm and lackluster fundraising — knew what this likely meant. So did a slew of Democrats sitting on the sidelines.
Biden was hurtling toward something no other candidate had achieved: demonstrable support from African Americans, the keystone of the Democratic electorate. He could back that up with a distant second place showing in Nevada, the best gauge of Latino support so far in the primary.
“The floodgates have opened,” a Biden confidant said last week, in reference to both fundraising and promised endorsements that were rolling in after that poll but before South Carolina voters went to the polls.
On the eve of Super Tuesday, the shift in the 2020 race was in full-force. Money gushed in: $10 million in 48 hours. The Biden campaign enjoyed a windfall of support from members of Congress, influential African American leaders and elected officials across pivotal states. It was capped by the rapid withdrawal of two other moderate top tier contenders in the race — Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. They, along with a third former 2020 candidate, Beto O’Rourke, swiftly turned to back Biden. Buttigieg, Klobuchar and O’Rourke were expected to join Biden at a Dallas rally Monday evening.
All day Monday, the campaign pushed out one endorsement after another: 100 leaders in Massachusetts, 30 officials in Virginia, former Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, major congressional leaders in Texas and California, local leaders in North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. Biden's sudden resurgence — his ability to at least partially clear the field and coalesce support — could prove to be a major turning point in a volatile 2020 primary.
The rush to get off the sidelines to back Biden came after his resounding South Carolina win, which signaled to the Democratic establishment that Biden would soon become the last standing moderate poised to attract a diversity of voters and credibly position himself as the alternative to Bernie Sanders. For backers, it was the final chance before Super Tuesday to help Biden build much-needed momentum. His dearth of fundraising meant his organizational infrastructure, not to mention TV advertising, was greatly lacking across 14 states, even as an outsized number of delegates were at stake.
Running against the Super Tuesday clock, the behind-the-scenes chatter quickly moved into full pledges of support from members of Congress, African-American leaders and elected officials.
The campaign’s play was to roll them out in dramatic fashion, to maximize the bounce out of South Carolina with another day of headlines.
“It’s raining endorsements right now, from every corner of the country, so much so that it’s like drinking out of a firehose, our vetting machine is having a difficult time keeping up,” a Biden adviser told POLITICO.
Aiding Biden’s newfound chances, ironically, was self-professed party savior Mike Bloomberg. After Bloomberg bombed his first debate, pressure began growing behind the scenes for the billionaire to make way for Biden. Part of the pitch from pro-Biden surrogates was that Bloomberg's past policies would prevent him from gaining on Biden among minorities. The bigger part of the pitch: Bloomberg’s past as a Republican meant he didn’t belong at the top of a Democratic ticket any more than Sanders did.
A source with knowledge of the conversations said staff-level talks between the two camps have been ongoing since last week. A different source said high-level donors who had been persuaded to hold back on Biden following devastating his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire had started pushing back, telling Bloomberg's team they were likely to shift back to Biden.
Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn told POLITICO on Monday that the campaign doesn't think it's in a position to tell other candidates what to do.
However, she added, "Given the stated purpose to get into the race was to nominate a Democrat who could beat Trump and not move the party too far to the left, it would seem like the choice is very clear between two candidates," Dunn said of Bloomberg. "[Bloomberg] is a man who has made and built his fortune on metrics and is clearly someone who can judge the metrics for himself."
Biden’s super PAC has stated outright that Bloomberg’s candidacy is boosting Sanders.
“Bloomberg’s $500 million in advertising is basically serving as the Bernie Sanders Super PAC, dividing the large share of Democratic voters who do not identify in the super-liberal lane of the party,” a memo from Unite the Country, the pro-Biden PAC, states. “His entire argument for existence was Joe Biden stumbling — and after four states, Joe Biden has received more votes than anyone. Mayor Bloomberg should decide soon if he wants to be the reason why Bernie Sanders is the nominee of the party.”
A Bloomberg campaign adviser indicated Bloomberg would remain in the race at least through Tuesday. “I’m in it to win it,” Bloomberg told reporters on Monday.
According to Advertising Analytics, as of Monday afternoon Bloomberg had yet to book TV ads after Super Tuesday. A representative with the TV ad tracking firm later said a Florida-only booking came in Monday evening.
Sanders, who is stumping in California, is still expected to come out on top in delegates on Super Tuesday. He is attracting hordes of supporters at rallies in the state.
And still in the mix is Elizabeth Warren, who recently announced her campaign raised $29 million in February alone. Warren also has a separate super PAC that’s spent heavily in Super Tuesday states. A memo from her campaign manager said she expected a delegate haul on Tuesday.
Sean Shaw, Buttigieg’s top African-American campaign surrogate and a former state representative from Tampa, Florida, said Buttigieg’s interest in backing Biden had to do with stopping Trump and making a statement against Sanders’ proposed policies.
“Joe Biden needed to show he could win the nomination by winning big in South Carolina and he won big,” Shaw said. “Pete wants to stop Bernie Sanders. This isn’t about him. It’s about the future of our country and the nomination.”
Marc Caputo, Christopher Cadelago and Maya King contributed to this report.
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How Biden engineered his astonishing comeback - POLITICO
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