Democrats Sprint Into 16-State Frenzy That Will Shape 2020 Race

(Bloomberg) -- The Democratic presidential candidates have spent their summers at the Iowa State Fair and fall weekends at New Hampshire diners, trying to win over one voter at a time in the two early states that can make or break a campaign.

Now, the campaign explodes into a geographic and demographic battle that will test the candidates’ national appeal, their fundraising prowess and their staying power. All five top-tier candidates seem likely to get to the next big contest, Super Tuesday on March 3.

Only two or three might come out the other side, and one of them hopes to be Michael Bloomberg, the self-funding billionaire who has reshaped the race without even being on a single ballot yet.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

For all the hubbub surrounding the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, five candidates have split less than 2% of the delegates to the Democratic presidential nomination. Now it’s a mad dash for another 44% up for grabs in the next three weeks.

“The rest of the nation is out there,” Joe Biden said.

The next stops offer the first chance for large numbers of non-white voters to have their say: the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29.

Then comes Super Tuesday, a 14-state contest where candidates hope to do well in the biggest prizes -- California and Texas -- but clever candidates could pick up lots of delegates by picking off smaller states that will be less traveled, like Arkansas and Minnesota.

“The road to the Democratic nomination is not paved with statewide winner-take-all victories,” Elizabeth Warren campaign manager Roger Lau wrote in a state-of-the-race memo released Tuesday. “This is not a race for governor, the U.S. Senate or the state treasurer’s office. This is a district-by-district contest for pledged delegates awarded proportionally.”

The big contest sets up particularly well for Bernie Sanders, who led the popular vote in Iowa and New Hampshire, is leading in California surveys and showing surprising strength in Texas. With his tailwind out of Iowa and New Hampshire, he is the candidate to stop on Super Tuesday.

Nipping at his heels is 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who surprised everybody with a steady strategy that has made him the delegate leader and a candidate to watch. A late surge by Amy Klobuchar vaulted her into third place in New Hampshire.

Many of the others will limp into the multi-state battle. Biden’s campaign insists he was never going to win the overwhelmingly white Iowa and New Hampshire and his best was yet to come in Nevada and South Carolina.

Warren is looking to hang on until Super Tuesday and focus her energy and resources on defeating Biden and Sanders.

“In that three-way race, Elizabeth Warren is the candidate with the highest potential ceiling of support and the one best positioned to unite the party and lead the Democratic ticket to defeat Donald Trump,” Lau said in his memo.

Watching is Bloomberg, who skipped the first four contests and has spent $357 million on advertising in the Super Tuesday states. He is picking up black support from a fading Biden, despite new audio of a speech he gave in 2015 in which he defends the stop-and-frisk policy in New York City by saying the best way to reduce gun violence in minority communities is to “throw them up against a wall and frisk them.” He has apologized again for that policy.

Here’s how the next frenetic three weeks are shaping up for each candidate:

Bernie Sanders

Sanders will barnstorm Super Tuesday states with rallies in North Carolina, Texas, Nevada and Colorado through the weekend.

He could face a little trouble from the unions who dominate Democratic politics in the state.

The Culinary Union, whose 60,000 hospitality workers are predominately Hispanic, hasn’t endorsed a candidate. Neither has the Service Employees International Union.

The Culinary Union distributed a one-page handout to members warning them about “presidential candidates suggesting forcing millions of hard working people to give up their health care,” the Nevada Independent reported, an oblique reference to Sanders’ Medicare for All proposals.

Although Biden has older black voters on his side, younger African Americans have been attracted to the 78-year-old senator from Vermont. Sanders is sending adviser Nina Turner to the Carolinas along with actors Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, just two members of his celebrity surrogate stable, along with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Pete Buttigieg

Buttigieg will focus his upcoming travel on Super Tuesday states as well as Nevada. He’ll also have four fund-raisers in Indiana as well as California to pay for ad buys and the cross-country campaign.

He has raised more money than his rivals from California’s wealth centers of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, but he is polling there in single digits. His historically close second-place finish in New Hampshire and celebrity appeal could give him a boost.

Read More: Hollywood Sizzles for Buttigieg, Eyeing His Future After 2020

The Buttigieg campaign acknowledged it has fewer paid staff on the ground in Super Tuesday states than his competitors, but said it’s trying to get volunteers to recruit friends and family.

For Buttigieg, the playbook is similar to his successful Iowa strategy: Focus on areas that voted for both Obama and Trump, hoping to appeal to more moderate voters.

Amy Klobuchar

“Hello, America, I’m Amy Klobuchar and I will beat Donald Trump,” Klobuchar exclaimed in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, re-introducing herself to the field after hanging in the second tier for months.

After her surprisingly strong finish in the New Hampshire primary, Klobuchar is going on a hiring spree and holding a New York fund-raiser Wednesday to replenish her resources.

Joe Biden

Biden didn’t even stick around to watch the New Hampshire results and thank supporters. Instead he went to South Carolina, where he is focusing on predominately African American congressional districts there and elsewhere in the South in the hope of netting significantly more delegates. One such place: the Alabama district held by Representative Terri Sewell, who has endorsed Biden.

But first, Biden needs to convince donors that he’s still worth backing. On Thursday, he’ll be in New York for a pair of high-dollar fund-raisers organized by influential contributors including Marc Lasry, Mark Gallogly, Jane Hartley and Rufus Gifford. Then he decamps to Las Vegas until the Nevada caucuses, jumping off for Super Tuesday stops around the West.

Biden’s also hoping the Nevada unions skeptical of Medicare for All will favor his plan to bolster Obamacare.

Biden has been losing black support to Bloomberg and has some repair work to do, which explains his leaving New Hampshire before the polls closed to hold a rally in South Carolina. A Quinnipiac poll on Monday showed Biden, Barack Obama’s vice president, losing 22 percentage points in that demographic, and Bloomberg is picking up the lion’s share there.

While Biden is in Nevada, he’ll send prominent African American surrogates — like senior adviser Symone Sanders and Louisiana Representative Cedric Richmond — to South Carolina.

Michael Bloomberg

The former New York City mayor has opened more than 150 offices with 2,000 staffers in 43 U.S. states and territories, plus 400 workers at his campaign’s New York City headquarters. He got into the race in November and ignored the first four contests, where candidates are expected to spend months tending to the grassroots.

Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s states director, said Bloomberg plans to compete for delegates in all 165 districts in play on Super Tuesday.

The chaotic aftermath of the Iowa caucuses prompted Bloomberg to double his advertising budget as the progressive Sanders surged and Biden began to collapse, leaving an opening for a centrist candidate.

In 2016, no candidate had spent money on television ads in Super Tuesday states on the day of the New Hampshire primary. Bloomberg has already spent at least $95 million in the Super Tuesday states, including $39.8 million in California and $33.3 million in Texas.

The only other candidates competing in California’s air war so far are Tom Steyer, with $21.8 million in ads, and Sanders, who leads there, with $4.1 million.

Tom Steyer

Steyer, another billionaire, is polling in single-digits nationwide but gaining in South Carolina after shifting the focus of his campaign to racial issues. In last week’s debate in New Hampshire, he was the only candidate to fully endorse reparations for slavery.

To collect the delegates needed to secure the nomination, Democrats need to get at least 15% of the vote to be eligible for delegates. The bigger the margin, the more delegates.

Most campaigns must be strategic in which states they target and which they ignore. Candidates can win delegates at both the statewide and congressional district level. Some congressional districts are worth more than others based on the number of Democratic voters.

Those decisions will be made by the delegate directors.

“It’s a science and an art,” said Jeff Berman, the delegate director for Obama’s successful 2008 nomination fight who’s now working for Steyer. “Each campaign looks at its strengths, looks at the media markets, looks at its budget and integrates those factors into a calculation of where it can be competitive.”

--With assistance from Bill Allison, Jennifer Epstein, Mark Niquette, Emma Kinery, Tyler Pager and Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Korte in Manchester, New Hampshire at gkorte@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, John Harney

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