Impact2020 Briefing: March 10, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Tuesday March 10. Of note today: Joe Biden chats with the Kansas City Star, Bernie Sanders looks to Washington state to keep his 2020 bid alive, and the campaigns are adjusting to the coronavirus outbreak.
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On the Ground
One-on-one with Biden
Joe Biden spoke with Cortlynn Stark of the Kansas City Star during his visit to Missouri ahead of Tuesday’s primary, where he addressed a range of questions on housing, health care, the Iraq War and sexism in politics.
“Sen. (Bernie) Sanders and I are the two guys left standing and we’re supposed to be explaining the sexism that occurred,” Biden said, when asked about the role gender bias played in the demise of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. “I can’t make that judgment. All I know is there’s a number of very qualified women who ran, like Amy Klobuchar as well and Kamala Harris and a whole range of folks. And I guess a lot of it has to do with the moment and the nature of the campaigns.”
Much more from that conversation here.
How the West was won
Much of the attention tonight is likely to be focused on the primary in Michigan, a state Sanders won in the 2016 primary and President Donald Trump carried in the general election. But as David Lightman reports for The Olympian, Washington’s “quiet primary” has the potential to “reverberate loudly” in the Democratic race.
“A decisive … win for the Vermont senator — which polls had suggested prior to … Biden’s recent surge in other states — would be fresh evidence of Sanders’ strength not only in Washington but in the West,” Lightman writes.
Coronavirus-free campaigning
“The outbreak of COVID-19 in the United States is complicating the Democratic presidential race,” the Miami Herald’s David Smiley writes. But it’s “not derailing it.” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez greeted field workers with elbow bumps, instead of handshakes, in Oakland Park, Fla., as they prepared to fan out and register voters Monday.
“In Doral a few hours later, former Secretary of State John Kerry, campaigning for … Biden ahead of Florida’s March 17 primary, avoided contact as much as possible in a cramped restaurant space.”
Some campaign forums have been canceled, but Democrats intend to hold their March 15 debate in Phoenix, Ariz. as scheduled, Smiley reports.
Trail Mix
March Madness
Biden campaigned with Kamala Harris and Cory Booker at a “rally in Detroit, a city where 82% of the residents are African Americans,” the Detroit Free Press’ Kathleen Gray reports.
Sanders’ Michigan campaign vice-chair Yousef Rabhi tells MLive’s Emily Lawler that polls showing the Vermont senator trailing Biden in the state “are kind of irrelevant at this point because so many people have already voted.”
Biden and Sanders are holding competing rallies in Cleveland less than two miles from each other, setting off “a battle for the March 17 Ohio presidential primary that could dictate the narrative for supremacy in the Midwest,” Seth A. Richardson writes for Cleveland.com.
The Columbus Dispatch’s Rick Rouan reports that voting locations in about 75 Ohio nursing homes are being moved ahead of the state’s primary because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19 .
Swing state watch
Organizers of the 2020 Republican convention in Charlotte, N.C., say they’re keeping an eye on the coronavirus outbreak, but tell the Charlotte Observer’s Jim Morrill there are no plans to alter the schedule at this point.
“More than three years into Trump’s presidency, Erie County, Pa., has 19,000 manufacturing jobs, fewer than when Trump took office and the smallest number since 2010, when the U.S. was still recovering from the Great Recession,” Jonathan Tamari reports for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Battle for Congress
The Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek reports that Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, the third-place finisher in last week’s Democratic primary for Senate in Texas, endorsed Royce West over MJ Hegar in the primary runoff to challenge Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Number of The Day
61%
Biden’s support among Democratic primary voters in Florida, according to a poll released Tuesday by Florida Atlantic University and reported by Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Sanders earned the support of 25% of Democratic voters in the state, which holds its primary on March 17.
For Planning Purposes
March 10
Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri and Washington hold primary elections and North Dakota holds its Democratic caucuses.
Biden and Sanders hold campaign events in Cleveland.
“In Other Words, the 2020 Presidential Election is Canceled”
On the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon explores the ramifications of new warnings that Americans over the age of 70 should avoid traveling and large crowds.
Even More
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This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 1:23 PM.