Impact2020 Briefing: March 11, 2020
Welcome to your Impact2020 briefing for Wednesday, March 11. Of note today: Joe Biden dealt Bernie Sanders’ campaign a severe blow on Tuesday night, and it’s not going to get any easier from here for the Vermont senator.
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On the Ground
Mini-Super Tuesday delivers for Biden
Bernie Sanders had a rough night Tuesday, losing decisively in the crucial battleground of Michigan. In Missouri, the networks called the primary race for Democratic rival Joe Biden shortly after polls closed at 7 pm ET, Jason Hancock and Bryan Lowry report for the Kansas City Star. Biden also handily won Mississippi and “scored a somewhat surprising victory” in Idaho, the Idaho Statesman’s Ximena Bustillo reports.
As David Lightman, Sarah Gentzler and Josephine Peterson report for the Tacoma News Tribune, Sanders failed to notch the decisive win he needed in Washington’s presidential primary. As of Wednesday afternoon, the race was still too close to call. Sanders did win North Dakota’s caucuses by a comfortable margin.
Bernie on the brink
The bad news for the Sanders campaign: “The presidential primary isn’t about to get any easier for him,” McClatchy Political Correspondents Alex Roarty and David Catanese write.
The next six primaries, which offer even more delegates than the six contests Tuesday, will be held in states Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016, Roarty and Catanese note. And polling indicates a steep climb for the Vermont senator — he trails Biden by double-digits in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.
One of the reasons Biden is poised to rack up a big win in Florida next week is his support from the state’s Latino voters. As the Miami Herald’s David Smiley reports, that is “a reversal of the results seen through most of the Democratic primary, in which Sanders’ biggest victories have drawn on his strength with Latinos. But they likely have more to do with Florida’s unique demographics than anything the Sanders or Biden campaigns are doing.”
Ford vs Ferrari, redux
Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver aptly sums up Biden’s appeal to Democratic primary voters, in the shadow of the coronavirus, wild stock market swings and an erratic president. While other candidates have tried to persuade voters they wanted a race car, Cleaver told the Kansas City Star’s Lowry, Hancock and Kelsey Landis that they’ve “decided that a Ford or Chevy is OK with them.”
That has been reinforced with “every shock or outrage from Trump” and his administration in recent weeks, Lowry, Hancock and Landis write. “It’s hard to sleep in the back of a car when somebody is speeding. You get nervous. And right now people are nervous,” Cleaver said.
Trail Mix
March madness
MLive’s Malachi Barrett writes that in Michigan, Biden “appears to have performed well among key constituencies Democrats will need to win in the general election, including African Americans, college-educated white women and less-educated working-class white voters.”
The Democratic party announced that Sunday’s first head-to-head presidential debate between Biden and Sanders in Phoenix, Ariz. will be held without an audience, due to the risk of coronavirus, the Arizona Republic’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports.
Biden canceled a rally scheduled Thursday in Tampa, “opting to deliver an address on coronavirus from his home state of Delaware instead,” Steve Contorno reports for the Tampa Bay Times.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel’s Anthony Man reports that “elections supervisors in Broward and Palm Beach counties are providing gloves, hand sanitizer and reassurance, but some of the poll workers essential to a successful election day are passing up working on the presidential primary next week.”
Sanders “will have to change a lot of Democratic voters’ minds from 2016” if he is going to win next Tuesday’s primary in Ohio, Cleveland.com’s Rich Exner writes.
Biden’s campaign has reserved its first wave of airtime in Georgia ahead of the March 24 primary, and has scheduled a March 22 fundraiser in Buckhead, while Sanders’ campaign will open a state headquarters in southwest Atlanta on Thursday, Jim Galloway, Greg Bluestein and Tia Mitchell report for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Swing state watch
McClatchy White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers reports that President Donald Trump and his campaign are preparing to portray Biden as a carbon copy of Sanders, with an eye towards the general election contest in critical states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
“While factory jobs are rebounding nationally … the uptick in manufacturing positions in Ohio is weak – growing at about half the U.S. pace,” Alexander Coolidge reports for The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Battle for Congress
Trump tweeted his support for ex-Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville’s Alabama Senate bid — over his own former Attorney General Jeff Sessions — hours after a new poll showed the football coach with a double-digit lead in the March 31 Republican primary run-off. AL.com’s Howard Koplowitz has the details.
Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines began airing his first television ad of the 2020 election, a 30-second spot that focuses on the dangers of a liberal agenda, but does not mention Democratic rival Steve Bullock, the Missoulian’s Holly K. Michels reports.
Number of The Day
1.6 million
The rough number of ballots cast in Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday night, a record high, the Detroit Free Press’ Paul Egan reports.
For Planning Purposes
March 12
Biden delivers remarks on the coronavirus in Wilmington, Del.
Two Words
Stephen Colbert gives viewers a preview of Biden’s new, shortened, stump speech on the Late Show.
Even More
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So Long
Today is my last day at the helm of McClatchy’s Impact2020 newsletter, but I’ll be leaving you in the very capable hands of my D.C. colleague Meta Viers. It’s been a real pleasure serving as your election news sherpa these past months. I hope you will continue to #ReadLocal for 2020 coverage and beyond!
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 2:32 PM.