The man’s friend and his family remained isolated at home in New Rochelle, Mr. Cuomo said. The three children, two sons and a daughter, who tested positive for the virus attended the Westchester Torah Academy in White Plains, N.Y. The man’s fourth child, a daughter, did not test positive for the virus.
The authorities announced the state’s first confirmed case of the new coronavirus on Sunday, saying a 39-year-old health care worker had been infected in Iran, where the illness is raging. She began exhibiting symptoms after returning home but had kept herself largely isolated.
Her husband had also been tested for the virus. The tests came back negative, but the man was being asked to remain in isolation, Mr. de Blasio said on Wednesday.
With the virus spreading, around 300 students and faculty at State University of New York and City University of New York campuses who were studying abroad in China, Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea — all of which have been epicenters of the illness — would be asked to come back to the United States, Mr. Cuomo said.
They would travel back to the U.S. on a chartered plane and be quarantined upon arrival for two weeks, Mr. Cuomo said. The state was identifying dormitories where they would be isolated.
Several New York City employees not connected to the Westchester case, including five police officers and one public-school teacher, all of whom had traveled to an affected country, were self-isolating as a precaution, Mr. de Blasio said. Officials had not yet tested them for the virus but planned to, he said.
Mr. de Blasio said that the teacher was “not in contact with students and won’t be in contact with students until it is safe to be so.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden was the apparent winner of Maine’s primary, according to NBC News.
This victory comes after winning nine of the 14 other states that participated in the Super Tuesday contests. Biden’s surprise success on the night has put him in the lead in delegates ahead of rival Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won Maine in 2016.
Maine has 24 delegates up for grabs. Biden had muscled his way past Sanders with a strong showing Super Tuesday, particularly in southern states and a few surprising northern states such as Massachusetts.
The primary was tough to forecast. There was little polling done of the state’s Democratic voters in the run-up to Super Tuesday. According to Real Clear Politics, the last poll of note in Maine, from October, had Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the lead ahead of Biden and Sanders.
Maine was one of the earliest states to see its polls close Tuesday, at 8 p.m. ET.
Biden secured the endorsement of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday after a poor Super Tuesday showing. Biden also received key endorsements from other rivals who dropped out, including former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas.
Bloomberg, who upon dropping out said that his goal is to take down President Donald Trump, is expected to steer his financial resources toward helping Biden secure the nomination.
Biden is polling just ahead of Sanders, with 27.5% compared to Sanders’ 26% of support, according to the latest Real Clear Politics polling average. Sanders has been the front-runner in recent weeks until Biden overtook the spot.
WASHINGTON – Young voters cheer Bernie Sanders’ anti-establishment message. They turn out in throngs at his rallies. And they form the core of his grassroots efforts to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
But their fiery passion did not translate into the robust turnout he needed on Super Tuesday to win a number of key states, notably in the South where a strong showing by Joe Biden has made the nomination contest a two-man race, especially now that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden.
Exit polls for several states Biden won, including Massachusetts, Texas and a number of southern states that helped catapult the former vice president into front-runner status, found that while more young voters went to the polls this election cycle, they did not show up at the rate they did in 2016.
In Virginia, for example, more than 1.3 million voters cast ballots compared to the roughly 800,000 four years ago. But exit polls on Super Tuesday showed that the share of young voters as a percentage of the entire electorate declined in the Old Dominion, diminishing their influence as a voting bloc.
In addition, the Vermont senator has been grabbing a smaller share of them in most cases.
In Alabama, only 10%of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to 46%in 2016.
In North Carolina, 14%of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
In South Carolina which held its primary Saturday, young voters made up 11% of the electorate compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters compared to 54% four years ago.
In Tennessee, 11% of those voters showed up Tuesday versus 15% in 2016. Sanders did better among that group Tuesday winning 63% compared to 61% four years ago.
In Virginia, young voters comprised 13% of Tuesday’s vote compared to 16% in 2016. Sanders won 55%of those voters Tuesday compared with 69% four years ago.
Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont showed a lackluster turnout of young millennials and ‘Gen Zers.’ Only 11%of the state’s electorate was under 30 compared to 15% when he ran against Clinton, according to exit polls.
And a similar trend played out in other Super Tuesday states such as Texas, where 15%of voters was between 17 and 29 compared to 20% in 2016, and Massachusetts where the share of young voters dropped from 19% four years ago to 16% Tuesday.
The common theme in all those states: Sanders fared worse this year than he did when he faced eventual nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Sanders’ agenda, which includes erasing student loan debt and providing health care for all, is popular with young people. But the exit polls indicated those voters were not the line of defense they were in 2016.
Sanders’ rallies feature throngs of college students and 20-somethings cheering him on. In Virginia, Sanders held three rallies last week that featured thousands of energized supporters at each stop. On Tuesday, Biden clobbered Sanders in Virginia, winning by 30 percentage points.
Sanders sounded undeterred Tuesday as he promised to keep marching toward the nomination.
“We are going to defeat Trump because we are putting together an unprecedented grass-roots, multi-generational, multi-racial movement,” he told supporters at a rally in Vermont.
The lackluster showing is sure to fire up the long-standing assessments of election experts who say young voters’ energy rarely matches their turnout on Election Day. It also undercuts Sanders’ argument that he is best suited to defeat President Donald Trump in November.
Sanders would need an extraordinary turnout among young voters to make up for the loss of moderates who would stay away from the polls if he’s the nominee, according to a study by political scientists David Broockman of the University of California-Berkeley and Joshua Kalla of Yale University, who surveyed some 40,000 voters to assess the electability of the Democratic contenders.
Sanders would need an increase of 11 percentage points among voters between 18 and 29 to offset the loss of swing voters, the study concluded.
But Griffin Schutte, 21, of Virginia Beach, said he switched from Clinton in 2016 to Sanders this year because he thinks the Vermont senator is best to stand up to Trump.
“And I think Bernie Sanders is well equipped to stand by his ideals and his policies that he’s been standing by during his long and very consistent career in politics,” Schutte said as he stood in line for a Sanders rally in Richmond Thursday.
Italy announced Wednesday it will temporarily close all its schools and universities as the country continues to grapple with a surge in coronavirus infections, according to new reports.
Those closures will begin Thursday and last until mid-March, CNBC reported.
Italian officials also said they may set up a new quarantine area, or “red zone,” in an attempt to contain the outbreak.
“None of us can be sure about the future evolution of the disease,” Angelo Borrelli, head of the country’s Civil Protection Agency, said at a Tuesday news conference. “This is an important week to understand what will happen.”
Red zones have already been set up in Lombardy and Veneto, where 11 towns are quarantined and inhabitants are prohibited from leaving.
Hospitals, particularly those in northern Italy, are struggling to carry the weight of those infected. An ambulance driver in an existing “red zone” told La Repubblica newspaper that “hours [will be] decisive” and “if the infection spreads it will be hard.”
Employees wearing protective gear spray disinfectant to sanitize a passenger bus as a preventive measure against the coronavirus.AP
By Wednesday morning, 2,502 cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Italy, according to Italian media reports published ahead of the daily official count released by the Civil Protection Agency.
The official death toll rose to 79 on Tuesday, up from 52 on Monday.
Those numbers at one point early Wednesday even exceeded the figures in Iran, until the Islamic Republic released its official death and infection count. A total of 2,922 people have been infected there and 92 have died, officials announced — though some doubt has been cast on the accuracy of that tally, according to CNBC.
Meanwhile, Poland confirmed its first coronavirus infection, the country’s health minister, Lukasz Szumowski, said Wednesday.
The man is being treated at a hospital in Zielona Gora, western Poland, where his life is not in danger, according to reports. He is not elderly or “part of a risk group,” the official said.
That win doesn’t put her in contention for the nomination — she’d need 1,990 more delegates to become the nominee — but under the rules for the last Democratic debate, it would get her on the stage.
Xochitl Hinojosa, the Democratic National Committee’s communications director, tweeted Tuesday evening that “of course the threshold will go up.” “By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated,” Hinojosa wrote. “The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”
To get into the February 25 debate in Charleston, South Carolina, the DNC said candidates had to have one or more of the following: at least 12 percent support in two DNC-approved South Carolina polls, at least 10 percent support in four DNC-approved national polls, or at least one delegate from any contest that had been held so far.
But whether Gabbard get to participate isn’t guaranteed. Neither is the participation of former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who also will finish Super Tuesday with new delegates.
The DNC has changed the rules for debate participation in more recent debates. When the primary started, a candidate had to have at least 1 percent support in at least three state or national polls or have raised money from at least 65,000 individual donors (spread over at least 20 states, with at least 200 donors in each of those states).
As time went on, candidates had to meet both a polling and individual contribution requirement. Eventually, both the contribution and polling level thresholds became more stringent, leading to a number of candidates then in the race, like Sen. Cory Booker and writer Marianne Williamson, being excluded.
As the increasingly high debate bar began to exclude candidates of color, there were calls to loosen the restrictions to ensure the debates featured diverse perspectives. In December, nine candidates came together and sent a letter to the DNC saying the increasingly difficult to meet debate criteria had “unnecessarily and artificially narrowed” the race.
The DNC dismissed this criticism but did announce a major change in February — no longer were individual contributions required. The move was widely seen as being made to allow Bloomberg onto the debate stage. And it upset a number of the candidates, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, who called the decision “the definition of a rigged system.”
The DNC disregarded the criticism, and Bloomberg appeared in both the Nevada and South Carolina debates. Now it would appear the DNC is poised to change the debate rules again.
The destroyed exterior of The Basement East following a tornado that struck in the early hours of March 3, 2020 in Nashville. At least 24 people have reportedly been killed, with many more still missing.
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The destroyed exterior of The Basement East following a tornado that struck in the early hours of March 3, 2020 in Nashville. At least 24 people have reportedly been killed, with many more still missing.
Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Early Tuesday morning, a tornado ripped through Nashville and greater middle Tennessee, causing extensive destruction to homes and businesses and claiming the lives of 24 people across four counties. While not the only neighborhood to sustain widespread damage, East Nashville was hit particularly hard, delivering a harsh blow to the city’s vibrant music and arts communities.
One of the first businesses to be reported as damaged was the Basement East, a beloved venue that opened in 2015 and has since been host both to national touring acts and to favorite local artists alike. In the hours after the storm, photos of the venue’s collapsed outer wall — with its “I Believe in Nashville” mural still intact — began flooding social media, accompanied by heartbroken tributes from artists and music fans.
Just hours before the tornado touched down, the “Beast,” as the venue is affectionately known, played host to the second night of “Berniefest,” a collaborative concert that sought to raise funds and awareness for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. Artists who performed Monday night include Lissie, Sarah Potenza, Darrin Bradbury and Liz Longley.
At 1:55 Tuesday morning, the Basement East tweeted, “All staff working tonight are okay! Building sustained significant damage.” In a later post to Facebook, Basement East staff said they were working to relocate or cancel upcoming shows, and to “bear with us as this process could take a few days to weeks.” One such show — country singer-songwriter Hailey Whitters’ March 10 date at the Beast — has already found a home on the same date at Exit/In, with all proceeds to be donated to tornado relief.
Emilee Warner co-produced Berniefest alongside local musician and producer Dean Moore. Speaking with NPR Music via phone, Warner says of the venue, “The Basement East is so special because of the community it supports and creates. What the Basement East represents is more of a community than a building. And Mike [Grimes] and Dave [Brown] put that venue in East Nashville intentionally, knowing that it would thrive because the artists and the fans live nearby. That’s where they want to go see music: in their neighborhood.”
The Basement East is located near East Nashville’s popular Five Points Neighborhood, home to numerous bars, restaurants and shops, as well as the historic and densely populated residential neighborhoods Lockeland Springs and Edgefield. East Nashville is known not only as a popular hangout destination for musicians and music fans, but also where much of Nashville’s music community works and lives. Many of the businesses that were lost in the tornado, like restaurant Burger Up and clothing store Molly Green, were part of the city’s vibrant service industry, which often serves as an employment hub for up-and-coming musicians across the city.
Nashville singer-songwriter Mercy Bell tells NPR Music that, when the tornado hit, she was working at Five Points-adjacent bar Rosemary, which she describes as being “run by musicians and music industry folks.” Bell and her co-workers huddled in the bar’s basement for safety when they first heard tornado sirens, before eventually venturing out into Five Points to see if their friends at other establishments were safe.
“I stood in the middle of the street dumbfounded and heartbroken,” Bell says, describing the moment she saw the destruction of establishments like Burger Up. “This was the neighborhood and community that’s given me my music and it was demolished. I felt the wind taken out of me. I don’t know how to explain what it feels like to look at a place you’ve called home for years in ruins.”
Dualtone Records, whose roster includes Shovels & Rope and Angie McMahon, lost its headquarters, which was situated just a block away from the Beast. Dualtone president Paul Roper tells NPR Music that their McFerrin Ave. office was “hit really hard” and that the label “will be rebuilding over the coming months.”
“It is an emotional thing seeing our neighbor’s building at Basement East devastated, and much of Five Points in what now looks like a war zone,” Roper adds. “Amidst it all, we are grateful to so many who have reached out with their love and support. This music community is strong and that is felt nowhere more closely than in Nashville. We saw this with the flood of 2010 and you can feel it again now: This city will lift one another up and come back stronger through it all.”
Neighborhoods north of downtown Nashville were also hit hard. Germantown, Salemtown and Historic Buena Vista all suffered massive property damage, with many displaced residents sheltering, for a time, at the nearby Nashville Farmers Market. These neighborhoods run alongside historic Jefferson Street, a main drag known for its deep roots in Nashville’s soul and R&B communities, and as a hub for the city’s black businesses and historically black colleges and universities, including Fisk University and Meharry Medical College.
The Donelson neighborhood also suffered great damage. The community, which lies just across the Cumberland River from East Nashville, also boasts a high number of musical and creative residents, both for its proximity to East Nashville and for its affordable housing. And while the national spotlight shines on Nashville, neighboring suburbs like Mt. Juliet and nearby Putnam County were also devastated by the tornado, with Putnam bearing the brunt of the death toll at 18 killed and many others still missing. Tuesday also marked “Super Tuesday” in Tennessee, with many residents heading to the polls at alternate locations late into Tuesday evening.
Many artists, both local and otherwise, have already started initiatives to raise funds and collect donations for victims of the tornado. Early Tuesday, country singer-songwriter Margo Price tweeted, “My heart is breaking for Nashville today. We left Five Points just minutes before the tornado hit completely unaware that it was coming. I feel lucky to be alive and still have a home,” before embarking on a day-long effort to deliver supplies to the Red Cross. Fellow Nashvillian and country artist Kacey Musgraves announced, via Instagram story, her plans to sell some of her clothing and accessories to Stage to Closet, with proceeds benefiting tornado relief.
Brittany Howard, known for her solo work and with bands Bermuda Triangle and the Alabama Shakes, posted an Instagram photo of her hands, presumably dirty after a day of helping neighbors sift through the wreckage of their homes, with the caption, “I love this community so much. I don’t know what else to say, really. Everyone is out here today helping with each other and it’s really moving,” along with links to aid organizations like Hands on Nashville, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Red Cross of Tennessee. (For those both in and outside of Nashville looking to help victims of the tornado, the Nashville Scene has compiled a handy guide to local organizations who accept both donations of money and aid items, as well as resources for those hoping to volunteer their time toward the recovery effort.)
Price, Musgraves and Howard are but three of many already working tirelessly to raise funds and help out on the ground throughout their middle Tennessee communities.
Emergency crews are still working to find missing persons, clear roadways and restore power to thousands of residents.
WILL THE SENATE BE IN SESSIONS? — There were several key primaries taking place all around the country last night — including in Alabama, where President Donald Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions finished well short of a majority in the state’s Senate primary. Now, Sessions will have to face a runoff on March 31 against former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville — but Trump may have just doomed Sessions’ chances for a congressional comeback.
While Trump stayed silent in the primary, he ripped Sessions on Twitter this morning, saying “this is what happens to someone who … doesn’t have the wisdom or courage to stare down & end the phony Russia Witch Hunt.” Trump’s intervention in the deep red state, where the president is immensely popular, could be enough to end Sessions’ comeback bid and political career, writes James Arkin. Much more on that and other Senate primaries: https://politi.co/32ZzcWZ.
In other Super Tuesday news … a pair of Texas incumbents fended off primary challenges from the left and right. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a centrist Democrat, defeated Justice Democrats-backed Jessica Cisneros. And Rep. Kay Granger, a senior appropriator and one of just 13 women in the House GOP, beat back a challenge from technology executive Chris Putnam, who was supported by the conservative Club for Growth. The Texas Tribune has a wrap-up of the two victories: http://bit.ly/2TAeaJX.
And in California, it looks like the special election to fill the remainder of former Rep. Katie Hill’s (D) term is headed to a runoff. There was a crowded field of candidates vying to replace Hill, including former Rep. Steve Knight (R-Calif.). Results are still trickling in, but Democratic California Assemblywoman Christy Smith and GOP former Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia have shot to the top of the pack, though neither is poised to get 50 percent of the vote, meaning they will likely face off in May. The latest from The Ventura County Star’s Tom Kisken: http://bit.ly/2ToPaXs.
Related reads: “Pierce Bush is first Bush to lose Texas race in over 40 years,” via CBS News: https://cbsn.ws/39l7vdu; and “SC Democrats prepare to pitch earlier primary spot after 2020 success, Iowa failure,” by Jamie Lovegrove of the Post and Courier: http://bit.ly/2wo3beN.
CORONAVIRUS CASH — An emergency funding package to combat the coronavirus is being held up by a dispute over the cost of vaccines and hospital reimbursements. Negotiators are still insisting they’ll be able to reach a deal and vote on the legislation as early as today, but their initial timeline for releasing the bill has slipped. At issue: Democrats want to include language ensuring vaccines and other treatments are affordable, while Republicans are warning that price controls could actually make medications more difficult to obtain.
“It’s going back and forth. That’s where we are,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a top appropriator. “There are no firm answers at the moment, but we’re moving toward getting this done and getting it done this week because the need is so critical.” And House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) indicated that if they can’t resolve the remaining sticking points, they can revisit the issue later, reflecting the desire among congressional leaders to put on a united front — and get emergency funding out the door before they leave town — amid growing fears of an outbreak. The story from Sarah, Heather and Sarah Owermohle: https://politi.co/2PJFVi6.
On tap today: the top four congressional leaders will sit down for a joint operational briefing about responding to the coronavirus on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. And Vice President Mike Pence will brief the House GOP on the latest coronavirus developments at 2 p.m., sources tell your Huddle host, while Democrats will receive a briefing from Pence at 2:30 p.m., per Heather. “Guests will include Vice President Mike Pence and additional Administration officials,” according to a notice sent to members.
Related: “Democrats Criticize Ad Targeting GOP Lawmakers Over Coronavirus,” from Natalie Andrews of the WSJ: https://on.wsj.com/2wxlMoD; and “Lawmakers looking for guidance on coronavirus,” by Roll Call’s Katherine Tully-McManus: http://bit.ly/2uVWhNy.
HAPPY HUMP DAY! Welcome to Huddle, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Wednesday, March 4, where your host wants to draft Symone Sanders to her fantasy football team next season after seeing her take down a protestor at a Biden campaign event last night. (Sanders’ response? “I broke a nail,” she tweeted.)
TUESDAY’S MOST CLICKED: Roll Call’s story on the status of coronavirus funding talks was the big winner.
FISA FIZZLES — Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Congress is struggling to finish something before a deadline. This time, it’s reauthorizing a set of expiring provisions in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The issue has created rifts in the Republican and Democratic parties alike, with progressives and libertarians demanding protections for civil liberties, while conservatives have railed against the law for being used to monitor Trump’s 2016 campaign and are pushing for reforms to ensure FISA can’t be abused.
GOP and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are having staff-level discussions in the hopes of reaching a bipartisan solution before the March 15 deadline, but it doesn’t look like a deal is imminent. “This shouldn’t be as hard as it feels like it is,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), one of the leading advocates for progressive-backed changes. Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, had pitched the Senate GOP on just extending the surveillance authorities and offered to make desired reforms administratively.
But Trump told Republicans during a White House meeting yesterday that he won’t sign a clean extension, and encouraged lawmakers to strike a long-term agreement. “You all work out a bipartisan deal and come back to me and I’ll sign it,” Trump said, according to a source in the room. Now there’s talk of a 30-day extension to give lawmakers more time to reach a deal, but it’s unclear if that would even have enough support to pass. The dispatch from Marianne, Bres and Kyle: https://politi.co/32M8Vey.
Related read: “Lindsey Graham has started interviewing witnesses in FISA abuse investigation,” by The Washington Examiner’s Tim Pearce: https://washex.am/2x74vmB.
DISTURBING THE PEACE — GOP defense hawks are sounding the alarm over Trump’s new peace agreement with the Taliban — and some are even privately lobbying the White House to leave a small number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, report Lara Seligman and Daniel Lippman. The deets: “The backroom scramble comes as President Donald Trump spoke with a top-ranking Taliban official by phone on Tuesday — a first for a U.S. president and a sign of the extraordinary political risks he’s been willing to endure to engineer a campaign-season exit from America’s longest war.” More: https://politi.co/2PNzw5z.
The Trump administration has been working to build congressional support for the plan and made secret documents about the agreement available to lawmakers in a secure setting in the Capitol. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who was standing next to Rep. Liz Cheney, a vocal GOP defense hawk, during their weekly leadership presser — encouraged lawmakers to read the documents before “someone makes an opinion about it.”
But later in the day, Cheney — who harshly criticized the agreement over the weekend — said she read the Taliban documents and still has the same concerns. “Those documents do not include in them the things that Secretary Pompeo said they would. So, my concerns still remain,” Cheney said at a hearing.
In other foreign policy news: “Lawmakers want the DNI to make public the intelligence community’s assessment of who’s responsible for killing Jamal Khashoggi,” via WaPo’s Ellen Nakashima: https://wapo.st/3avFLD7.
COLLINS’ CONUNDRUM — GOPSen. Susan Collins of Maine has declined to say whether she’s backing Trump’s reelection bid in 2020. “I already answered that question,” Collins told CNN, apparently referring to comments she made last Friday. In that interview, however, she didn’t directly address the topic: “I have voted by absentee ballot, just to make sure that I voted,” Collins told WCSH in Portland, Maine. “And I would note that it’s on the Democratic side that there are eight candidates, and my likely opponent as well as the governor and many other Democratic officials have not said who they are going to choose in what is a contested Democratic ballot. I’m focused on my job and also on my own campaign, and I’m just not going to get involved in presidential politics.”
Collins, who is one of the vulnerable GOP senators on the ballot this fall, is walking a tightrope as she gears up for reelection. While she wants to show her independence from Trump, she also can’t alienate his base too much either. That dynamic was on full display during the Senate impeachment trial, where Collins supported hauling in witnesses but ended up voting to acquit the president. The story from CNN’s Manu Raju and Alex Rogers: https://cnn.it/39m8JF7.
Related: “Ratcliffe nomination puts Susan Collins in tough spot,” per The Hill’s Alexander Bolton: http://bit.ly/2VLo2Do.
BIRTHDAY BASHES — Lawmakers threw a surprise 80th birthday party for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights icon who has been battling cancer. A video of the surprise, via Rep. Mark Takano: http://bit.ly/2If4NdD. Meanwhile, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) celebrated his b-day in a far more unconventional way: a cake trolling one of his adversaries, Chinese President Xi Jinping. The pic and the backstory, from Business Insider’s David Choi: http://bit.ly/3aoaVw7.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD!— Burgess sends along this dispatch on the newest and tiniest member of the Congress team: “John Charles Everett was born March 2 at 3:30 pm. 8 pounds 13 oz. Everyone is healthy.”
TRANSITIONS
Emily Taylor is the new communications director for the Senate Commerce Committee.
TODAY IN CONGRESS
The House gavels in at 10 a.m., with first votes expected between 1:15 and 2:15 p.m. Today’s agenda: http://bit.ly/39tydRi.
The Senate meets at 10 a.m. to resume consideration of the motion to proceed to S. 2657 (116), the legislative vehicle for the Senate’s bipartisan energy package. Senators will vote on the motion at 10:30 a.m.
AROUND THE HILL
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) hold a news conference on Congressional Progressive Caucus priorities and news of the day at 1 p.m. in HVC Studio B.
Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) holds a news conference to introduce the “Labor Certainty for Food Security Act” at 3 p.m. in HVC Studio B.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) holds a news conference with the local chapter of March For Our Lives at 4 p.m. on the House Triangle.
TRIVIA
TUESDAY’S WINNER: Ross A. Kapilian was the first person to guess that the modern-day “Super Tuesday” as we know it started in 1988 with about 20 states, per NPR.
TODAY’S QUESTION: From Ross: When was the last time the Democrats and the Republicans had a convention that lasted more than one ballot? The first person to correctly guess gets a mention in the next edition of Huddle. Send your best guess my way at mzanona@politico.com.
WASHINGTON – Young voters cheer Bernie Sanders’ anti-establishment message. They turn out in throngs at his rallies. And they form the core of his grassroots efforts to win the Democratic presidential nomination.
Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.
In addition, the Vermont senator has been grabbing a smaller share of them in most cases.
In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.
In Tennessee, 11% of those voters showed up Tuesday versus 15% in 2016. Sanders did better among that group Tuesday winning 65% compared to 61% four years ago.
In Virginia, young voters comprised 13% of Tuesday’s vote compared to 16% in 2016. Sanders won 57% of those voters Tuesday compared to 69% four years ago.
Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont showed a lackluster turnout of young millennials and ‘Gen Zers.’ Only 10% of the state’s electorate were under 30 compared to 15% when he ran against Clinton, according to exit polls.
And a similar trend was playing out in Texas where 16% of voters were between 17 and 29 compared to 20% in 2016.
The common theme in all six states: Sanders fared worse this year than he did when he faced eventual nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Sanders’ agenda, which includes erasing college debt and providing health care for all, is popular with young people. But the exit polls indicated those voters were not the line of defense they were in 2016.
Sanders’ rallies feature throngs of college students and 20-somethings cheering him on. In Virginia, Sanders held three rallies last week that featured thousands of energized supporters at each stop. On Tuesday, Biden clobbered Sanders in Virginia by winning by 30 percentage points.
Sanders sounded undeterred Tuesday as he promised to keep marching toward the nomination.
“We are going to defeat Trump because we are putting together an unprecedented grass-roots multi-generational, multi-racial movement,” he told supporters at a rally in Vermont.
The lackluster showing is sure to fire up the long-standing assessments of election experts who say young voters’ energy rarely matches their turnout on Election Day. It also undercuts Sanders’ argument that he is best suited to defeat President Donald Trump in November.
Sanders would need an extraordinary turnout among young voters to make up for the loss of moderates who would stay away from the polls if he’s the nominee, according to a study by political scientists David Broockman of the University of California-Berkeley and Joshua Kalla of Yale University, who surveyed some 40,000 voters to assess the electability of the Democratic contenders.
Sanders would need an increase of 11 percentage points among voters between 18 and 29 to offset the loss of swing voters, the study concluded.
But Griffin Schutte, 21, of Virginia Beach, said he switched from Clinton in 2016 to Sanders this year because he thinks the Vermont senator is best to stand up to Trump.
“And I think Bernie Sanders is well equipped to stand by his ideals and his policies that he’s been standing by during his long and very consistent career in politics,” Schutte said as he stood in line for a Sanders rally in Richmond Thursday.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore told MSNBC’s Ari Melber Monday that he was disappointed by former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar dropping their presidential bids the day before Super Tuesday.
Moore, a vocal supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, said the Democrats are more worried about dampening Sanders’ popularity than they are defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.
“They did everything they could up to this point,” Moore said. “They couldn’t stop the momentum. It’s so sad that Mayor Pete and Amy couldn’t even, they couldn’t even go 24 more hours.”
“It wasn’t going to cost them any more money, it wasn’t going to cost them any more work,” Moore added. “They’ve put a year of their lives into this.”
Moore also questioned the timing of the candidates suspending their campaigns in order to endorse Biden.
“Tell me one time when you’ve seen major candidates, especially Mayor Pete who won and tied an election, a primary, when we’ve seen them drop out the night before the big enchilada,” Moore said.
“You know when they drop out?” Moore asked. “Say, the day after the Super Tuesday primary. Who drops out the night before?”
Newsweek reached out to Moore for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Biden’s campaign has undergone a resurgence since his victory Saturday in the South Carolina primaries. His long affiliation with the African-American community in the state, as well as serving as vice president under President Barack Obama, helped him capture 39 delegates with 48.4 percent of the vote.
Sanders came in a distant second with almost 20 percent of the vote, picking up 15 delegates.
Monday in Utah, Sanders told reporters that Biden’s high-profile endorsements were not surprising to him.
“The corporate establishment is coming together,” Sanders said. “The political establishment is coming together and they will do everything. They are really getting nervous that working people are standing up.”
Biden has tenaciously gone after Sanders on his past voting record on gun control including his vote against the Brady Bill, which supports background checks for firearms purchasers and a five-day waiting period between the purchase and the delivery of a handgun. Sanders also supported legislation that prohibited suing gun manufacturers.
“Bernie voted five times against the Brady Bill and wanted a waiting period of 12 hours,” Biden said during the South Carolina Democratic debate in February.
“The biggest mistake that Bernie made, that Senator Sanders made, he voted to give the gun manufacturers, the only major industry in America, a loophole that does not allow them to be sued for the carnage they are creating,” Biden added. “First thing I’ll do as president is work to get rid of that.”
Sanders defended his voting record saying, “30 years ago, I likely lost a race for the one seat in Congress in Vermont because 30 years ago I supported a ban on assault weapons. Right now, my view is we need to expand background checks, end the gun show loophole and do what the American people want, not what the NRA wants.”
Democratic presidential contender Mike Bloomberg claimed Tuesday he “didn’t realize” Sen. Elizabeth Warren was still in the primary race, going so far as to ask a reporter if she was still running.
Speaking to reporters while campaigning in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Fla., the billionaire ex-mayor made the admission after being asked if a third-place finish in Super Tuesday states would be good.
“If there’s only three candidates, you can’t do worse than that,” he told the reporter.
“Well, there is Elizabeth Warren also,” the reporter replied.
“I didn’t realize she’s still in. Is she?” he responded.
The reporter didn’t press Bloomberg further on whether he was kidding, instead changing the subject to how the former NYC mayor hopes to do in California.
Warren, like Bloomberg, only sees a path to the Democratic nomination through a contested party convention.
The Massachusetts progressive has been vocal in recent weeks that she still sees a path despite not having won any states yet and not hedging her bets on winning any on Super Tuesday.
Warren appears so confident about her standing — and the likelihood of a contested convention — that she refused to refer to her home state of Massachusetts as a “must-win” when speaking to a Washington Post reporter Saturday.
“In the road to the nomination, the Wisconsin primary is halftime, and the convention in Milwaukee is the final play,” Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, wrote in a memo, referencing the 2020 Democratic National Convention scheduled for this summer in Milwaukee.
Bloomberg is also relying on a contested convention to secure his general election candidacy.
Speaking on Monday to campaign volunteers, the billionaire said he wasn’t feeling dissuaded about his Super Tuesday chances after moderate Democrats began coalescing behind former VP Joe Biden in an effort to unite the party.
“The most likely scenario for the Democratic Party is that nobody has a majority and then it goes to a convention where there’s horse-trading and everybody decides to compromise on — it doesn’t even have to be one of the two leading candidates. It could be somebody that had only a small number of delegates,” Bloomberg said Monday night during a Fox News town hall.
Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar call it quits as former Vice President Joe Biden pulls in political endorsements; reaction on ‘The Five.’
Democrats have begun coalescing around former Vice President Joe Biden after he won handily in the crucial South Carolina primary on Saturday, but CNN and MSNBC appear to be renewing their hostile coverage of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who the Democratic establishment reportedly fears will run away with the nomination.
There has been a bitter feud between MSNBC and the Sanders campaign in recent weeks as the self-described socialist began emerging as the clear 2020 front-runner. “Meet The Press” anchor Chuck Todd suggested that Sanders supporters were part of a “digital brownshirt brigade,” which was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, who suddenly retired from the network Monday night, similarly invoked the Holocaust by comparing Sanders’ victory in Nevada to the Nazi takeover of France. He later apologized for those remarks.
The Sanders campaign had been vocally critical of MSNBC’s coverage of the candidate. Campaign manager Faiz Shakir accused the network of “undermining” the front-runner’s candidacy.
“It’s been a struggle to change the tone and the tenor of the coverage that we receive,” Shakir told Vanity Fair. “They’ve been among the last to acknowledge that Bernie Sanders’ path to the nomination is real, and even when it’s become real, they frequently discount it.”
Page Six reported last month that Sanders himself had an explosive confrontation with top MSNBC executives before taking the stage at the network’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, one source saying, “Bernie marched right up to NBC and MSNBC’s head of creative production and began jabbing his finger right in his face, yelling, ‘Your coverage of my campaign is not fair … Your questions tonight are not going to be fair to me.’ ”
He even sparred with network president Phil Griffin, according to Page Six, telling him, “Phil, your network has not been playing a fair role in this campaign. I am upset. Is anything going to change?… I hope you will do better.’”
While it was being reported that Griffin was “taking the complaints seriously,” signaling that his network would be turning a new leaf, its coverage of Sanders suggests that the status quo remains.
During its coverage of the South Carolina primary, MSNBC star Rachel Maddow claimed that Sanders “continues to underperform systematically with black voters” despite his placing second among black voters in Nevada and his surge among black voters in recent national polls.
On Monday, “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough appeared to pressure former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to get out of the race since he, as he claims, is not “taking votes away” from Sanders.
“There’s nobody in America that thinks that Michael Bloomberg is taking votes away from Bernie Sanders. What in the world can be his logic of staying in this race when all he’s going to do is take away votes from Bernie Sanders’ competitors?” Scarborough asked.
However, it’s not just MSNBC that is going after Sanders.
Over the weekend, CNN host Michael Smerconish asked “Can either coronavirus or Bernie Sanders be stopped?” which was also written in a graphic that was blasted on social media. After facing backlash, CNN told Mediaite, “The banner was wholly inappropriate and a mistake. We are addressing internally.”
CNN was also accused of “choreographing” a Biden endorsement with one of its own contributors.
“Following its first commercial break, Saturday night, after declaring Joe Biden the winner of the South Carolina primary, CNN went right to contributor Terry McAuliffe — the ex-Democratic National Committee chair and former governor of Virginia. McAuliffe… And so — with no numbers yet on the board, but ample evidence pointing to a Biden rout — CNN anchor Anderson Cooper teed up McAuliffe to deliver the big news,” Mediaite senior editor Joe DePaolo wrote. “What followed was nothing short of a three-minute Biden commercial, with an unchallenged McAuliffe making the case for his preferred candidate, and — unfathomably — even calling for others to drop out of the race.”
He continued, “Joe Biden – prior to a post-South Carolina windfall – could not afford to buy much airtime on CNN. But what he got, in the B-Block on Saturday night, was worth far more than a bushel of 30-second spots… Did CNN, in allowing – and even encouraging – paid network contributor Terry McAuliffe to make his unchallenged endorsement of Joe Biden in the manner that he did, and at the time that he did, intentionally tip the scales in the vice president’s favor?”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks to supporters during a rally Monday, March 2, 2020, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/George Frey)
Both MSNBC and CNN gave continuous coverage of Biden’s Texas rally on Monday evening, featuring his former competitors Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke, all who gave their endorsements to the ex-vice president.
A CNN panel on Tuesday compared the group of endorsements to the “Avengers” being assembled to stop Sanders as the declared supervillain “Thanos” in the analogy.
“CNN and MSNBC are essentially recycling bins of old-guard corporate Democratic establishment figures,” progressive journalist Jordan Chariton told Fox News. “The metamorphosis from the cacophony of distraught, befuddled, perplexed faces across television news as Bernie Sanders won Iowa, New Hampshire, and crushed Nevada, to the reinvigorated and commanding voices we’re now seeing across the corporate media as Joe Biden won South Carolina, should serve as a case study for future media ethics collegiate courses (if those exist anymore).”
He continued, “Watching these partisan, pro-status quo corporatists pretending to be good-faith political analysts is why an overwhelming majority of the country are programmed to think big, substantive change can’t really happen in America.”
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck expressed a similar sentiment, telling Fox News “it’s clear as day” that CNN and MSNBC are “feeling much more confident about their chances of securing a Biden nomination.”
“CNN and MSNBC have circled the wagons around Biden as their savior to defeat Donald Trump,” Houck said. “If you’re a Bernie Sanders supporter and watching either channel, what was annoyance or even anger either has already or will be coming to a roaring boil.”
The World Bank approved $12 billion in emergency financing to help poor nations with the health costs and economic impact of the outbreak, the organization said. “We are working to provide a fast, flexible response based on developing country needs in dealing with the spread of COVID-19,” World Bank Group President David Malpass said in a statement. The money is intended to help the poorest and most at-risk nations fight the virus, which has spread to at least 74 countries across the globe, and will be used to provide emergency financing, technical assistance and policy advice. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said on Monday they stood ready to help member countries deal with the coronavirus outbreak, including through emergency funding. — Kopecki
DALLAS (Reuters) – It was a scene that was hard to imagine just one week ago.
Joe Biden, 77, and until Sunday his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Pete Buttigieg, 38, appeared together before a tiny crowd in the Chicken Scratch restaurant in Dallas, where Buttigieg endorsed the former vice president.
Fighting back tears, Biden compared the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to his late son Beau, saying it was the highest compliment he could offer any person.
Having ditched his own bid for the nomination, Buttigieg, who had spent months calling for generational change, said Biden would “bring back dignity to the White House.”
Buttigieg’s endorsement was the most eye-catching among over 100 that flooded in for Biden from mostly moderate Democrats after his dominant South Carolina win on Saturday.
That victory gave Biden unexpected momentum going into the pivotal Super Tuesday contests of 14 states that will vote on the nominee to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November.
New Biden backers also included U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, who ended her own presidential bid on Monday, as well as another former presidential rival, former congressman Beto O’Rourke of Texas. Both endorsed Biden at his final rally in Dallas before voting begins in Texas and 13 other states on Tuesday.
Biden’s comeback in South Carolina, after poor showings in other early voting states, was exactly the kind of a victory that Democratic Party officials, alarmed that front-runner U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders is far too liberal to beat Trump, had been craving, according to more than two dozen people who either gave their endorsements or were involved behind the scenes.
“I hadn’t planned on endorsing anybody, but then I started getting worried that Bernie Sanders would become the nominee,” said former Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a longtime Senate colleague of both Biden and Sanders.
On the eve of the South Carolina primary, she called longtime Biden aide Steve Ricchetti, telling him she would endorse Biden if he won the race. Boxer then wrote up her own endorsement statement, sent it to the Biden campaign, and said the campaign could release it in the event of a victory.
“There was no plan, no pressure, nothing,” Boxer said.
People both inside and outside the Biden campaign said that while the effort to garner endorsements involved calls from Biden aides asking for help, most decided on their own.
“People woke up and got a sense of urgency,” said one person close to Biden.
Buttigieg’s endorsement, in particular, surprised Biden.
When the two talked by phone after Buttigieg exited the race on Sunday night, Biden did not ask Buttigieg for his endorsement nor did the former mayor say he was going to announce support, Biden said at the Texas chicken restaurant event.
The event, which lasted only a few minutes and involved a small crowd of press, campaign supporters and people who just happened to be at the restaurant, was hastily arranged to accommodate a quick, last-minute announcement, said one person familiar with the matter.
Just a day earlier on Sunday evening, former President Barack Obama, to whom Biden served as No. 2 for eight years, called Buttigieg amid reports he was exiting the 2020 race, according to two people aware of that phone call.
Obama did not explicitly ask Buttigieg to endorse Biden, the people said, but emphasized the historic nature of his bid and the leverage it carries. Buttigieg, the first openly gay major presidential candidate, won Iowa’s first-in-the nation caucuses and came a close second behind Sanders in New Hampshire’s primary in February.
Buttigieg, who once volunteered for Obama’s election, understood the ties between Obama and Biden.
“It was unsaid,” said one of the two sources, who requested anonymity. Representatives for Obama could not be reached for comment.
COMMON GOAL
No matter how they came to join a sudden and growing army of endorsers for Biden, each backer had one thing in common: a desire to stop the surge of the self-described democratic socialist Sanders.
Most believe the senator from Vermont, who champions economic justice and universal government-run healthcare in place of private insurance, will not only lose to Trump, but could dash Democratic hopes of regaining the Senate and even cede control of the House of Representatives to Republicans.
Former Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, still an influential figure in the party, told Reuters he could no longer stand idle, faced with the prospect of a Sanders nomination.
On Sunday night, Reid called Ricchetti, who was traveling with Biden on a plane, and told them he was ready to endorse.
“If my friend Bernie Sanders gets the nomination, Trump will beat him,” Reid said.
House freshman Gil Cisneros of California said Biden’s huge support from African-American voters in his South Carolina win was a big factor in his decision to endorse.
“Biden had a strong showing in South Carolina, and that will resonate in the South,” Cisneros said. “I think he’s the best candidate to help bring Democrats together.”
Many black voters backed Biden after he was endorsed by James Clyburn, an African-American congressman from South Carolina and the third most senior Democrat in the House.
The majority of South Carolina primary voters said Clyburn’s backing was an important factor, according to Edison Research exit polls, which showed Biden with 61% of African-American support to Sanders’ 17%.
“Hopefully we can all give Biden a boost, not just California, but in all the Super Tuesday states,” Cisneros said.
Reporting by Tim Reid, Trevor Hunnicutt, Jarrett Renshaw and Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Soyoung Kim, Simon Cameron-Moore and Jonathan Oatis
The Texas Democratic primary on Super Tuesday saw long lines at somepolling sites in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods, and reportedly dissuaded at least some Texas voters from casting their ballot at all.
Many of the sites with long waits were in Harris County, where about 40 percent of the population is Latino and 19 percent of the population is African American. At one elementary school, the line was an hour long.
The Harris County Clerk’s Office had to send 12 more voting machines to the Houston Community College site to accommodate the over 300 people in line, even though polls had already officially closed. Some voters called civil rights groups and reported waits as long as two hours at college campuses, while others just gave up, according to reporter Kira Lerner:
We don’t know whether turnout was higher than expected in these areas, but it’s likely that the problem was larger — and more enduring — than that. Long lines at polling places are a perennial problem in America.
Texas in particular has been making it harder for people to vote since Shelby County v. Holder, a 2013 case in which a divided US Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had required that jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voting practices get the federal government’s approval before changing their election rules.
After the decision, Texas immediately implemented a stringent law that required voters to present photo IDs, and started to unilaterally close polling sites in a way that disadvantaged minority voters. According to a report by the Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil rights group, Texas has closed about 750 polling sites since 2012, including 542 sites in 50 counties where African American and Latino populations have significantly grown in recent years.
With fewer polling sites available, it’s not surprising that voters in Harris County were facing long wait times on Tuesday night. It’s a problem for candidates relying on turnout among Latinos, who make up about 30 percent of the electorate in Texas, and African Americans, who account for about 13 percent.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been polling well among Latino voters in Texas: He led the field with 26 percent support, 6 points over his rival former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a February 28 Univision/University of Houston poll. But it’s been a tight contest in Texas between Sanders and Biden, for which Sanders needs significant Latino support to win. Sanders has been trying to appeal to Latinos with a progressive policy platform that speaks to their core interests — health care, jobs, and, for some, immigration — and has invested heavily in spreading his message, in both Spanish and English, to Latino communities in Texas and other states.
Biden, meanwhile, has been drawing significant support from African American voters, who powered his comeback that began in South Carolina and continued through other Southern states Tuesday night.
The lack of access to polling stations and the ensuing chaos on Super Tuesday also isn’t good news for Democrats who are hoping to flip the state blue in 2020 for the first time since 1976. That will require capitalizing on a shift to the left among college-educated voters, as well as getting Latino and African American voters to turn out, despite the shortage of polling locations in their neighborhoods.
The former vice president had a blowout night on Super Tuesday, seemingly reversing his slow start to the primary season, where his electability was questioned following fourth and fifth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, respectively.
Biden started the night winning Virginia and went on to sweep the states in the South, jumping out to a lead ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ in the national delegate hunt and essentially turning the primary into a two-person race. At 2 a.m. EST, it was announced Biden had won Texas.
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg made his debut on ballots across the country and won the American Samoa caucuses, but failed to win any states.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom are still running to be the Democratic nominee, failed to seal any wins and now trail by a substantial margin.
As of 2 a.m. EST, Biden had won 9 states, Sanders had won 4 states and Bloomberg had won one U.S. territory.
Here are key takeaways from Super Tuesday night:
Biden roars back after South Carolina
Biden looked like the comeback kid, despite facing weeks of questions over whether he can gain the momentum to take on Sanders, the frontrunner in delegates ahead of Super Tuesday.
As of 2 a.m., Biden’s delegate count sat is at 450. Sanders is standing at 376. There are 3,979 pledged delegates from all states and territories, and a candidate needs 1,991 of them to win in the first vote at the Democratic National Convention.
After Biden’s blowout win in South Carolina, Biden’s campaign saw a flood of support for his campaign. Former mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar both dropped out before Super Tuesday and endorsed the former vice president.
Black voters, who pushed Biden to victory in South Carolina, were also the key voting bloc behind Biden’s wins in several states like North Carolina, Virginia and Alabama. According to exit polls, 63% of black voters in Virginia supported Biden compared to 18% who backed Sanders. North Carolina saw similar numbers, with 63% of black voters backing Biden and only 16% supporting Sanders. In Alabama, 72% of black voters supported Biden compared to 12% for Sanders.
In general, black voters are one of the most important voting blocs for the Democratic Party. Biden’s dominance with black voters could spell trouble for Sanders going forward.
Biden’s wins also were fueled mostly by moderate and conservative voters, according to exit polls. In addition, voters who made up their mind in the last couple of days overwhelmingly went to Biden.
The blowout win was seemingly unimaginable before the South Carolina primary, when Biden was struggling to keep up in polls with Sanders and Bloomberg, who were both campaigning heavily in Super Tuesday states. Biden never even visited or opened any field offices in several of the states he won, such as Minnesota. He only held one rally in Virginia, where he won overwhelmingly.
Sanders’ rise interrupted
Sanders did seal one big win Tuesday night: California.
According to exit polling, Sanders had a huge margins of support with almost all voter groups in California, with the exception of black voters and voters 65 and over. He won with the largest voting block, white voters, and overwhelmingly was supported by Latino voters — a key group the campaign was trying to appeal to.
Sanders had the largest share of Latino voter support in both California and Texas. He was supported by 55% with Latino voters in California and 45% in Texas, according to exit polls.
But other than that, the Vermont senator’s finishes in several states fell flat.
He lost Minnesota, a state he won in 2016 and rallied in Monday night ahead of Super Tuesday. He was also endorsed by several Minnesota officials, including Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Sanders drew a crowd of 13,000 in Boston Saturday, but failed to win Massachusetts, and he also lost Oklahoma. Both were states he won in 2016 and both went to Biden this year.
A Bloomberg bust
Bloomberg picked up his first delegates on Super Tuesday, but after spending over a quarter billion dollars on advertising in Tuesday’s primary states, his delegate haul so far was a disappointing blow.
Bloomberg saw a win in the American Samoa caucus, the single U.S. territory to participate in Super Tuesday. He received five pledged delegates out of the six available, but he didn’t win any other contests.
Gabbard, who is of Samoan descent, saw her one delegate win come from American Samoa. It is the only delegate she has won in the primary so far.
Bloomberg also picked up delegates in eight other states.
“No matter how many delegates we win tonight, we have done something no one thought was possible,” Bloomberg told supporters Tuesday evening. “In just three months, we’ve gone from 1% in the polls to being a contender for the Democratic nomination.”
Bloomberg’s campaign spent 60 times what Biden did in states the former vice president won Tuesday night, NBC News reported.
In Virginia alone, the Bloomberg campaign had opened seven field offices and hired more than 80 staffers to canvass the state, which was also bombarded with millions in dollars of advertising, mostly on radio and television. But Bloomberg fell far behind in that state, coming in fourth out of five candidates with 100% reporting in a state that Biden won. He snagged just 9.7% support in Virginia.
Warren continues to lag, loses home state
Warren’s campaign is facing a disheartening finish in Super Tuesday states, picking up just a couple dozen delegates so far and coming in a distant third in her home state of Massachusetts.
Warren fell behind both Biden and Sanders in Massachusetts, where she serves as a United States senator, and she also lost to them in the state where she was born and raised, Oklahoma. With just under 80% of precincts reporting, Warren had 20.7% of the Massachusetts vote, with Sanders at 27.3% and the former vice president declared the winner with 33.6% support.
Not only did Warren not win a state on Tuesday, the senator did not place in the top two in any state either. Warren, who along with Sanders represents the more progressive wing of the Democratic race, has steadily lost support from the left as Sanders has surged.
But she indicated to supporters that she is looking ahead to later primaries; at a campaign event in Detroit early on Tuesday evening, she said that race predictions are not reliable.
“Predictions are a terrible business. Pundits have gotten it wrong over and over,” Warren said. “Cast a vote that will make you proud. Vote from your heart. And vote for the person who you think will make the best president of the United States”
Chris Wallace discusses the similarities between President Trump and Bernie Sanders’
“Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace said on Tuesday that President Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders are the only two candidates who have a base with a “genuine grassroots enthusiasm” from ardent supporters that will “walk through fire for them.”
Wallace stressed that Super Tuesday is “so important” because Bloomberg will actually face voters in the national race for the first time.
“We’re going to see whether or not those half-billion dollars in ads actually get support when people go to the polls,” Wallace said.
Wallace’s comments came after Trump claimed Monday that the race is being “ rigged against Bernie.” Trump added that Sanders could still “pull through” and win the nomination.
Democrats began coalescing around Biden after he won handily in the crucial South Carolina primary on Saturday, while CNN and MSNBC appear to be renewing their hostile coverage of Sanders, I-Vt., who the Democratic establishment reportedly fears will run away with the nomination.
There has been a bitter feud between MSNBC and the Sanders campaign in recent weeks as the self-described socialist began emerging as the clear 2020 front-runner.
“Meet The Press” anchor Chuck Todd suggested that Sanders supporters were part of a “digital brownshirt brigade,” which was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League.
“Hardball” host Chris Matthews, who suddenly retired from the network Monday night, similarly invoked the Holocaust by comparing Sanders’ victory in Nevada to the Nazi takeover of France. He later apologized for those remarks.
Both MSNBC and CNN gave continuous coverage of Biden’s Texas rally on Monday evening, featuring his former competitors Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke, all of whom have given their endorsements to the ex-vice president.
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
Joe Biden picked up three major endorsements in Dallas, Texas on Monday as former 2020 primary candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Beto O’Rourke publicly backed his campaign for the Democratic nomination.
Building on the former vice president’s momentum following his big victory in South Carolina on Saturday, the three ex-contenders heaped praise on Biden as he campaigned in the Super Tuesday state offering the second most delegates.
Speaking to the press and supporters in Texas yesterday, Buttigieg said Biden would “bring back dignity to the White House” and described the former vice president as “unfailingly decent.”
“I’m looking for a leader, I’m looking for a president, who will draw out what’s best in each of us,” Buttigieg said. “And I’m encouraging everybody who was part of my campaign to join me, because we have found that leader in Vice President, soon to be President, Joe Biden.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) similarly praised Biden, saying a vote for him would be a vote for “decency” and “dignity.”
Appearing at the end of Biden’s Dallas rally last night, Texas Democrat O’Rourke, who dropped out of the primary in November last year, said: “I will be casting my ballot for Joe Biden, and let me tell you why.
“We need somebody who can beat Donald Trump. The man in the White House today poses an existential threat to this country, to our democracy, to free and fair elections, and we need somebody who can beat him. And in Joe Biden, we have that man.”
But his comments stood in stark contrast with a past assessment he made of the former vice president’s chances of winning the White House earlier in the primary campaign.
Asked if Joe Biden was a return to the past on MSNBC in June last year, O’Rourke said: “He is, and that cannot be who we are going forward. We’ve got to be bigger, we’ve got to be bolder, we have to set a much higher mark and be relentless in pursuing that.”
Pressed on whether Biden needed to apologize for his support of the Iraq invasion, the former primary candidate replied: “Look you’ve got to ask yourself where Joe Biden is on the issues that are most important to you.
Question: “Is Joe Biden a return to the past?”
Beto O’Rourke: “He is and that cannot be who we are going forward. We’ve got to be bigger, we’ve got to be bolder. We have to set a much higher mark.”
“Did he support the war in Iraq that forever destabilized the Middle East? Does he really believe that women of lower incomes should be able to make their own decisions about their own body? Be able to afford healthcare to be able to do that?”
“On China, he says China is no threat, nothing to worry about, and now seems to be changing his message on that,” O’Rourke later added. “I’m not exactly sure what he believes or what he should apologize for. I only know that this country should be able to do far better.”
Appearing before Iowa voters in January, Buttigieg also appeared to take aim at Biden. The Hill reported the former primary candidate saying: “I hear Vice President Biden saying that this is no time to take a risk on someone new.
“But history has shown us that the biggest risk we could take with a very important election coming up is to look to the same Washington playbook and recycle the same arguments and expect that to work against a president like Donald Trump who is new in kind.”
After former Vice President Biden took a dig at Buttigieg in February, saying he was “no Barack Obama,” the ex-South Bend mayor also told CNN: “Well he’s right, I’m not. Neither is he. Neither is any of us running for president, and this isn’t 2008. It’s 2020 and we are in a new moment calling for a different kind of leadership.
“We are facing the most disruptive president in modern times, and I don’t think the same playbook that helped us get here is going to work against him.”
Minnesota Sen. Klobuchar appears to have largely refrained from hitting out at Biden during the 2020 campaign and has long called the former vice president a “friend” of hers.
In an interview with CBS affiliate WCCO about a possible Biden candidacy in the 2016 race, Klobuchar said: “Vice President Biden is a friend of mine, he’s come out here several times to Minnesota and I think he’s going to make his own decision based on his own circumstances and his family.
“But again I think you’re going to see Hillary Clinton continue to be strong in this race.”
Newsweek has contacted the Biden campaign for comment on the past remarks of Buttigieg and O’Rourke. This article will be updated with any response.
Attempts have also been made to contact representatives of Buttigieg and O’Rourke for comment.
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates polling averages for the Democratic presidential candidates in Super Tuesday states ahead of voting.
This article was updated to include an infographic.
Hong Kong (CNN)Countries worldwide are preparing for the possibility of public health emergencies related to the novel coronavirus, as the World Health Organization warned a shortage of protective equipment is hampering the response to the outbreak.
CNN’s Shanshan Wang contributed reporting from Beijing; Ramin Mostaghim contributed reporting from Tehran; Yoonjung Seo contributed reporting from Seoul; Charles Riley contributed reporting from London; Dave Alsup contributed reporting from Atlanta; Maegan Vazquez, Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak contributed reporting from Washington; and Matt Egan Anneken Tappe contributed reporting from New York
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return null == t ? n : J(t) ? t : Q(t) ? t.toString() : void j.logWarn(“Unsuported type for param: ” + e + ” required type: String”);
}
function ce(e, t, n) {
return n.indexOf(e) === t;
}
function ue(e, t) {
return e.concat(t);
}
function se(e) {
return Object.keys(e);
}
function de(e, t) {
return e[t];
}
var fe = ge(“timeToRespond”, function (e, t) {
return t = e.length ? (this._t = void 0, i(1)) : i(0, “keys” == t ? n : “values” == t ? e[n] : [n, e[n]]);
}, “values”), o.Arguments = o.Array, r(“keys”), r(“values”), r(“entries”);
},
101: function _(e, t, n) {
“use strict”;
var r = n(102),
i = n(72);
e.exports = n(104)(“Set”, function (t) {
return function (e) {
return t(this, 0 >> 0,
o = 0;
if (t) n = t;else {
for (; o = b.syncsPerBidder ? a.logWarn(‘Number of user syncs exceeded for “‘.concat(t, ‘”‘)) : d.canBidderRegisterSync(e, t) ? (f[e].push([t, n]), (r = p)[i = t] ? r[i] += 1 : r[i] = 1, void (p = r)) : a.logWarn(‘Bidder “‘.concat(t, ‘” not permitted to register their “‘).concat(e, ‘” userSync pixels.’)) : a.logWarn(“Bidder is required for registering sync”) : a.logWarn(‘User sync type “‘.concat(e, ‘” not supported’));
var r, i;
}, d.syncUsers = function () {
var e = 0 Object(y.timestamp)();
},
s = function s(e) {
return e && (e.status && !S()([O.BID_STATUS.RENDERED], e.status) || !e.status);
};
function w(e, r, t) {
var i = 2 i && (r = !1)), !r;
}), r && e.run(), r;
}
function g(e, t) {
void 0 === e[t] ? e[t] = 1 : e[t]++;
}
},
addWinningBid: function addWinningBid(e) {
g = g.concat(e), x.callBidWonBidder(e.bidder, e, o);
},
setBidTargeting: function setBidTargeting(e) {
x.callSetTargetingBidder(e.bidder, e);
},
getWinningBids: function getWinningBids() {
return g;
},
getTimeout: function getTimeout() {
return S;
},
getAuctionId: function getAuctionId() {
return m;
},
getAuctionStatus: function getAuctionStatus() {
return b;
},
getAdUnits: function getAdUnits() {
return y;
},
getAdUnitCodes: function getAdUnitCodes() {
return d;
},
getBidRequests: function getBidRequests() {
return h;
},
getBidsReceived: function getBidsReceived() {
return f;
},
getNoBids: function getNoBids() {
return l;
}
};
}, n.d(t, “c”, function () {
return H;
}), t.f = d, t.d = J, n.d(t, “e”, function () {
return Y;
}), n.d(t, “h”, function () {
return f;
}), n.d(t, “g”, function () {
return l;
}), t.i = p;
var C = n(0),
s = n(9),
w = n(42),
a = n(26),
o = n(78),
j = n(11),
_ = n(3),
r = n(32),
i = n(13),
c = n(12),
B = n.n(c),
U = n(33),
u = n(2);
function R(e) {
return (R = “function” == typeof Symbol && “symbol” == _typeof(Symbol.iterator) ? function (e) {
return _typeof(e);
} : function (e) {
return e && “function” == typeof Symbol && e.constructor === Symbol && e !== Symbol.prototype ? “symbol” : _typeof(e);
})(e);
}
function D() {
return (D = Object.assign || function (e) {
for (var t = 1; t e.getTimeout() + _.b.getConfig(“timeoutBuffer”) && e.executeCallback(!0);
}
function J(e, t) {
var n = e.getBidRequests(),
r = B()(n, function (e) {
return e.bidderCode === t.bidderCode;
});
!function (t, e) {
var n;
if (t.bidderCode && (0 t.max ? e : t;
}, {
max: 0
}),
g = 0,
b = v()(e.buckets, function (e) {
if (n > p.max * r) {
var t = e.precision;
void 0 === t && (t = y), i = (e.max * r).toFixed(t);
} else {
if (n = t.length ? {
value: void 0,
done: !0
} : (e = r(t, n), this._i += e.length, {
value: e,
done: !1
});
});
},
62: function _(e, t, r) {
function i() {}
var o = r(28),
a = r(94),
c = r(63),
u = r(50)(“IE_PROTO”),
s = “prototype”,
_d = function d() {
var e,
t = r(55)(“iframe”),
n = c.length;
for (t.style.display = “none”, r(97).appendChild(t), t.src = “javascript:”, (e = t.contentWindow.document).open(), e.write(“
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