Category: 2020 election

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South Carolina Republicans Plan To Boost Bernie To Help Trump

First, Trump supporters called the Iowa caucus hotlines to jam up reporting the results – and now this. From the New York Post:

Republicans in South Carolina have hatched a plan to encourage GOP voters to support Sen. Bernie Sanders in the state’s upcoming Democratic primary, arguing that he poses the weakest threat to President Trump in the general election.

That plan has two goals: Boost the candidate the party believes will have the hardest time winning the state in November against Trump, and pressure Democrats to support their effort to have closed state primaries in the future.

South Carolina has open primaries, which means voters can participate in any primary without being required to register with a specific party.

   

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Pete Buttigieg: I’m Not Obama, Neither Is Biden

Mayor Pete Buttigieg
As the Democratic presidential candidates look to Tuesday’s primary in New Hampshire, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden continue to spar in their fight for the moderate lane of the Democrats. Biden, who came in a distant 4th place in Iowa, told Biden ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos, “I’m saying he hasn’t been able to unify the black community — that’s what I’m saying,” while underscoring his support and endorsements from several black leaders. Responding to Biden’s assertion that he’s “no Barack Obama,” Buttigieg agreed in an interview with Stephanopoulos following Biden. “He’s right, I’m not Barack Obama, and neither is he. Neither is anyone running for president right now. And this isn’t 2008, it’s 2020.” “This election is about where our county’s headed next and of course how to defeat Donald Trump,” Buttigieg continued. “What I’m offering right now, and the reason I think we have been able to succeed so far, is a message that is about building the sense of belonging and pulling together a coalition, a majority, that will not only defeat Donald Trump, but do it by a big enough margin that we send ‘Trumpism’ into the history books,” he added.

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Trump Supporters Flooded Dem Phonelines Adding To Iowa Chaos

Donald Trump

In case you missed it, Bloomberg News reports Trump supporters thought it would be cute to call in and clog the Iowa Democratic party phone lines adding to the chaos on caucus night.

Supporters of President Donald Trump flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders on a conference call Wednesday night.

According to two participants on the call, Ken Sagar, a state Democratic central committee member, was among those answering the hotline on caucus night and said people called in and expressed support for Trump. The phone number became public after people posted photos of caucus paperwork that included the hotline number, one of the people on the call said.

On Thursday morning, the Iowa Democratic Party confirmed it “experienced an unusually high volume of inbound phone calls to its caucus hotline,” which included “supporters of President Trump who called to express their displeasure with the Democratic Party.”

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New Biden Spot Mocks Buttigieg’s Experience, Buttigieg Claps Back

L-R Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden
After former Vice President Joe Biden’s dismal 4th place showing in the Iowa caucuses (and I take no joy in writing that), Biden’s campaign is going on the offensive against former Mayor Pete Buttigieg with a direct, negative ad mocking Mayor Pete’s experience as the mayor of a midwestern city. “We’re electing a President,” says the narrator of the spot. “What you’ve done matters.” The ad goes on to contrast Biden’s experience in the Obama administration with Buttigieg’s tenure as mayor: “When President Obama called on him, Joe Biden helped lead the passage of the Affordable Care Act. And when parkgoers called on Pete Buttigieg, he installed decorative lights under bridges, giving citizens of South Bend colorfully illuminated rivers.”

Shortly after the video was posted, the Buttigieg campaign clapped back. From the Buttigieg campaign:

At this moment, the American people are crying out for something completely different from this classic Washington-style of politics.

While Washington politics trivializes what goes on in communities like South Bend, South Bend residents who now have better jobs, rising income, and new life in their city don’t think their lives are a Washington politician’s punchline.

Pete’s on-the-ground experience as mayor, turning around a Midwestern industrial city, is exactly why he is running for president.

The vice president’s decision to run this ad speaks more to where he currently stands in this race than it does about Pete’s perspective as a mayor and veteran.

Biden and his team have said they expect to lose New Hampshire but hope to regain its footing in South Carolina and Nevada later this month. The current RealClearPolitics average of polls in New Hampshire shows Sen. Bernie Sanders averaging 26.4%, Buttigieg at 22.2%, Biden at 12.6% and Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 12.2%.

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Mike Bloomberg Building ‘Parallel, Unofficial Party Structure’

Former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (image via campaign)
Axios took a deep dive into how billionaire Mike Bloomberg is putting his money where his mouth is in terms of building a huge campaign operation as he runs for the Democratic nomination for president.

The big picture: Bloomberg’s campaign has repeatedly said it will spend “whatever it takes” to defeat President Trump. There’s nothing stopping Bloomberg from topping $2 billion.

    • With 2,100 paid staff, Bloomberg has three times as many as Trump, five times as many as Joe Biden and more than twice as many as Elizabeth Warren, according to data the campaigns provided to Axios.
    • He pays his staff more than any other 2020 Democrat’s campaign and offers housing if they have to move to New York City, according to a campaign official.

By the numbers: In just over a month, Bloomberg spent more than the top 2020 contenders spent for the whole final quarter of 2019 combined, according to Federal Election Commission data. He also outspent the entire RNC and DNC.

(image via Axios)
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Buttigieg On Homophobic Caucus Voter: ‘My Love Is The Same As Her Love For Those She Cares About’

Pete Buttigieg on The View
During today’s episode of The View, Democratic White House hopeful Pete Buttigieg responded to a video clip of an Iowa caucus-goer who tried to rescind her vote for him after learning he’s gay. Hello? Where has she been? Asked what he thought after watching the clip (“I guess she didn’t get the memo”) Buttigieg said, “I’m running to be her president, too.” He added, “I wish she was able to see that my love is the same as her love for those that she cares about.” Watch Mayor Pete’s remarks below.

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Buttigieg Holds Slim Lead As Iowa Results Continue To Be Released

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg holds on to a tiny lead as the remaining results of the Iowa caucuses continue to trickle in. According to CNN, Buttigieg is currently looking to receive 26.2% of state delegates with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) right behind him with 26.1 percent. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has 18.2 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden has 15.8 percent (a result he’s called ‘a gut punch’), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) sits at 12.2 percent. Regarding the popular vote, Sanders leads with 44,753 while Buttigieg lands in second place with 42,235 votes. Warren received 34,312 votes, Biden scored 23,051 and Klobuchar remained in fifth with 20,525. This reflects 97 percent of the votes thus far. Several media outlets have reported the long delay in finalizing the count is due, in part, to results being snail-mailed to the state Democratic party. In light of the counting debacle in Iowa, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez is calling for a recanvass of the Monday night caucuses.

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Partial Iowa Results (It’s All We Got) Show Buttigieg With Slight Lead

Partial results from the Iowa caucuses show former Mayor Pete Buttigieg leading the pack with 26.9% of the vote followed very closely by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) with 25.1%. From CNN:

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held a narrow lead in the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night, according to a partial release of a majority of the results by the state Democratic party a day after an embarrassing organizational breakdown that marred the biggest night of the election year so far. Buttigieg was trailed closely by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren with former vice-president Joe Biden in a distant fourth place, based on a tally of 62% of the precincts reporting. Iowa awards only 41 delegates, who eventually nominate the Democratic presidential candidate at the party’s national convention in July, which represents around just 1% of the national total.

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Bloomberg Trolls Trump: “Two Billionaires? Who’s The Second One?”

Talk about next-level trolling. During an interview with CBS News, Mike Bloomberg was asked about his feud with Donald Trump, and whether people want to see two billionaires fighting on Twitter. Bloomberg: “Two billionaires? Who’s the second one?” Bloomberg is a self-made billionaire worth an estimated $56 billion. Trump claims he’s a billionaire, but no one has ever seen any proof of that as he is the first president in over 40 years to refuse to release his tax returns.