Politico

He salutes “the great state of Kansas.”

By RISHIKA DUGYALA

02/02/2020 11:25 PM EST

When President Donald Trump tweeted his congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs, he initially expressed his pride for “the Great State of Kansas.”

The Chiefs are based in Missouri. Not Kansas City, Kansas.

After a late comeback, the Chiefs scored a 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers, delivering Kansas City’s first NFL championship in 50 years. Star quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named the Super Bowl MVP.

Trump wrote at 10:15 p.m. on Sunday: “Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game, and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well! Our Country is PROUD OF YOU!”

Within minutes, the president’s tweet was deleted and replaced — this time with the right state.

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Politico

One progressive wants to blow up the establishment. The other wants to unite the party.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and ALEX THOMPSON

02/02/2020 08:51 PM EST

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Bernie Sanders’ surrogates booed Hillary Clinton, lit up members of the Democratic National Committee, and proudly noted that people were “freaking out” that he would win.

Meanwhile, at a canvass launch Saturday, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign was busy putting up placards that read “Unite the Party.”

In the final hours before Iowa’s caucuses, the two leading progressive presidential candidates are making diametrically opposed pitches to voters: Sanders’ campaign is leaning hard into their anti-establishment bonafides, while Warren is selling herself as a candidate who can bring together a fractured Democratic Party.

Warren’s message is aimed toward more traditional and mainstream Democrats who have fretted for months about the need to bring the party together; many believe President Trump won the election partly because the party was divided. Sanders’ pitch is pointed at young, infrequent and disillusioned caucus-goers who are exhausted and furious with the status quo, and who think Trump rode to victory on an anti-establishment mood throughout the nation.

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Daily Beast

Some of Elizabeth Warren’s Iowa supporters are worried about Sanders’ high-energy fan base.

Scott Bixby
National Reporter
Jackie Kucinich
Washington Bureau Chief
Updated Jan. 31, 2020 11:10PM ET / Published Jan. 31, 2020 10:31PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa—On Friday morning, Cyndi Conard’s home at the end of a snowy road was alive with pre-caucus energy. As Conard, a precinct captain in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, removed quiche from her oven, Warren staff instructed volunteers how to persuade undecided voters to join their team, handing out door hangers, clipboards and hand warmers, the hum of human activity interrupted only by the squawk of Conard’s cockatoo Derby Doo.

They were preparing for the arrival of Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), one of Warren’s several designated torchbearers there to help the campaign as the impeachment trial continued to keep the candidate in D.C.

But Conard was nervous.

“They’ve done a good job, I will have to say, getting out there,” she said of Warren’s team. “I think his group has too. So it’s kind of hard to know what’s gonna happen.”

The “his” she was referring to is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and in the dwindling days before the Iowa caucuses, the energy among his supporters has propelled him to frontrunner status.

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Politico

The talks reveal rising anxiety over the Vermont senator's momentum on the eve of voting.

By DAVID SIDERS

01/31/2020 05:31 PM EST

Updated: 01/31/2020 06:59 PM EST

DES MOINES, Iowa — A small group of Democratic National Committee members has privately begun gauging support for a plan to potentially weaken Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and head off a brokered convention.

In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.

“I do believe we should re-open the rules. I hear it from others as well,” one DNC member said in a text message last week to William Owen, a DNC member from Tennessee who does not support re-opening the rules.

Owen, who declined to identify the member, said the member added in a text that “It would be hard though. We could force a meeting or on the floor.”

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Politico

The Vermont senator headed into 2020 in significantly better financial shape than his main rival in the polls, Joe Biden.

By MAGGIE SEVERNS

02/01/2020 12:37 AM EST

Bernie Sanders hasn’t just been gaining in the polls for the last month. He has also assembled a campaign juggernaut built to last well beyond Iowa — and stocked it with twice as much money as his top rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders spent a whopping $50 million in the last three months of 2019 to help set up his surge, at least $15 million more than any of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigieg, the other main contenders in Iowa. And even while blowing out his spending budget, Sanders’ legion of small-dollar online donors pumped in enough money for him to finish the year with $18.2 million in the bank, more than twice as much as Biden, who had $8.9 million.

The dramatic cash gap between Sanders and Biden could prove fateful for the two front-running candidates after Monday’s Iowa caucuses. While Sanders has put himself in a strong position in Iowa, he’s also better equipped to withstand trouble and still soldier on in the race. On the other hand, Iowa looks more important than ever for Biden in light of his campaign finances: The former vice president has little cushion to manage a dip in fundraising and needs new momentum to fund an expanding campaign, especially as Super Tuesday draws closer and the battlefield grows.

A candidate with significant money in the bank can withstand an early loss, said Taryn Rosenkranz, founder of the Democratic online fundraising firm New Blue Interactive. But Democratic donors “are going to rally behind the person who they think is going to win. That first caucus out of the gate is going to be the one who people are surging for,” Rosenkranz said.

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Politico

Biden is a creature of the Senate. Sanders is a creature of the campaign trail. Seeing them back to back in these two settings clarifies the choice.

By RYAN LIZZA

01/30/2020 05:12 AM EST

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Though he’s adjusted the pitch somewhat to respond to critics, the heart of Biden’s speech still includes a paean to the old Senate where relationships matter more than anything else and what’s most important is to never, as he puts it, question a colleague’s motives, only their judgment. Biden even quoted columnist David Brooks about restoring America’s “moral fabric.” On Wednesday, he added a specific criticism about the dangers of attacking a fellow legislator as being, for example, “in the pocket of” an industry. Once you get personal, he insisted, the deals can’t get done.

This is the flip side of Sanders’ flaw. Sanders eschews relationships and deal-making to a fault, while Biden fetishizes them to a fault. Sanders, according to Hillary Clinton’s recent harsh assessment, is someone that “nobody likes” and “nobody wants to work with” in the Senate, but in Iowa he has raucous crowds and actual rock stars campaigning for him. Biden is a beloved figure among Democrats in the Senate and has trouble rousing an audience in Iowa.

In the midst of an impeachment trial that is about a plot to define Biden as personally corrupt — in the pocket of big Ukraine! — Biden’s argument about relationships sounded hollow. He seems to recognize this. In Council Bluffs, Biden quickly pivoted to a perhaps more effective pitch about how the Republican Party was trying to destroy him because it believes he could beat Trump.

“They’re trying to smear me to stop me,” he said. This time the crowd applauded.

Politico

Leading in most Iowa polls, Sanders is suddenly faced with the dilemma of how to respond to attack ads from all sides.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

01/30/2020 05:00 AM EST

DES MOINES, Iowa — Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner in Iowa — and now he’s being treated like it.

The Vermont senator is being pounded on television in the first-in-the-nation caucus state from both sides, with attack ads airing by a pro-Israel Democratic super PAC and a conservative dark-money group.

Faced with the dilemma of how to respond in the face of bombs dropped on him days away from the Iowa caucuses, the Sanders campaign is mostly sticking to pocketbook issues — for now.

Sanders’ TV ads in the state remain centered on “Medicare for All,” a major focus of his campaign, as well as women’s rights and his movement. That’s a different approach than that of Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, who are making more explicit appeals to electability in the final sprint before Iowa.

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