By: Steve Peoples, Brian Slodysko & Jake Bleiberg

Rivals no more, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg united behind Joe Biden’s presidential bid on Monday as the Democratic Party’s moderate wing scrambled to boost the former vice president just hours before voting began across a series of high-stakes Super Tuesday states.

The urgency of the moment reflected deep concerns from the Democratic establishment that Bernie Sanders, a polarizing progressive, was positioned to seize a significant delegate lead when 14 states, one U.S. territory vote on Tuesday.

Klobuchar suspended her campaign and endorsed Biden just a day after Buttigieg announced his exit. Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg, who had been Biden’s chief competition for their party’s pool of more moderate voters over the last year, declared their public support for Biden on Monday evening at a rally in Dallas.

“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. “We have found that leader in vice president, soon-to-be president, Joe Biden.”

The sweeping shifts come at a key crossroads in Democrats’ turbulent primary season as the party struggles to unify behind a clear message or messenger in its urgent quest to defeat President Donald Trump. Yet as a field that once featured more than two dozen candidates shrinks to just five, the choice for primary voters is becoming clearer.

On one side stands Biden, a 77-year-old lifelong politician who represents a pragmatic approach to governing that emphasizes bipartisanship and more modest change. On the other stands Sanders, a 78-year-old democratic socialist who has for decades demanded aggressive liberal shifts that seek to transform the nation’s political and economic systems.

Yet the primary isn’t yet a two-man race.

New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg, in particular, could create problems for Biden’s establishment appeal. The former New York City mayor, who will appear on a 2020 ballot for the first time on Tuesday, has invested more than a half billion dollars into his presidential bid and wracked up many high-profile endorsements of his own.

And Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has struggled for delegates and momentum over the last month, has vowed to stay in the race until the party’s national convention in July.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, however, Biden received a significant boost following his resounding victory over the weekend in South Carolina.

He posted his best two-day fundraising haul in more than a year, raising roughly $10 million over the last 48 hours. And the former vice president added to his considerable endorsement lead in recent days as elected officials began to coalesce more meaningfully behind him. He has long been the favorite of many elected officials even as he struggled through the first three primary contests of the year.

Biden’s new backers feature a who’s who of current and former Democratic officials across the nation: former Nevada Sen. Harry Reid; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice; Arizona Senate candidate Mark Kelly; former Colorado Sen. Mark Udall; former California Sen. Barbara Boxer; Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va.; and Rep. Gil Cisneros, D-Calif.

Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, the first member of Congress to endorse Buttigieg, said he planned to endorse Biden and expected Buttigieg to as well.

“I do think it’s the most logical,” Beyer said of a Biden endorsement, given his echo of the former vice president’s call for civility, a mantra of the Buttigieg campaign. “I think Joe is the next best possibility.”

Perhaps the most powerful endorsement would come from former President Barack Obama, who has a relationship with most of the candidates and has talked with several in recent weeks as primary voting has begun. He spoke with Biden to congratulate him after his South Carolina victory, but still has no plans to endorse in the primary at this point.

Sanders’ team shrugged off Biden’s success.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the candidates funded by big money and super PACs are coalescing behind Joe Biden, and that’s not a surprise,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior strategist. “I think it’ll add a lot of clarity to this race.”

And while Biden’s momentum is undeniable, not everyone in his party’s moneyed establishment is convinced.

Some major donors preferred to wait until after Super Tuesday to decide whether to join the Biden movement. And even some of his more loyal fundraisers remain frustrated by disorganization within the campaign.

For example, the former vice president has struggled to raise money in Silicon Valley, where many wealthy donors prioritize organization and a data-driven plan. The inability of Biden’s team to demonstrate such competence pushed many donors toward his rivals, and others are taking a wait-and-see approach.

“We need to see what happens tomorrow, which is going to be very telling,” said Alex Sink, a Democratic donor and former Florida gubernatorial candidate who endorsed Bloomberg.

And the former vice president’s strategy for the coming days, which relies on media coverage and dispatching his new collection of surrogates, reflects a stark reality:

Compared to Sanders and Bloomberg, Biden is understaffed, underfunded and almost out of time as he fights to transform his sole South Carolina victory into a national movement.

Biden announced he raised $18 million in February, compared to an eye-popping $46.5 million for Sanders and $29 million for Warren.

Sanders has struggled to win over his colleagues in Congress but earned a high-profile endorsement of his own on Monday from Democracy for America, a national grassroots organization originally led by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean that boasts thousands of members across the county.

“The overwhelming support for Bernie we saw in our member vote should be a wake-up call to the broken, visionless, corporate Democratic establishment,” said the organization’s chair Charles Chamberlain. “Americans want fundamental change in Washington, not a return to the status quo.”

Some Democrats also bemoaned the distinct lack of diversity in the shrinking field.

The National Organization for Women’s political action committee endorsed Warren on Monday. The group’s president, Toni Van Pelt, said she’s alarmed about the lack of attention paid to the female candidates, who have often had to defend their “electability.”

“It’s time to support a woman,” she said. “We want to make sure we’re not looking at all these old white men again.”

Through four primary contests, the AP allocated 60 delegates to Sanders, 54 to Biden and eight to Warren. Buttigieg and Klobuchar have 26 and seven, respectively.

Candidates who drop out of the race keep the delegates they’ve won until each state party selects the actual people who will serve as those delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. At that point, delegates won based on statewide primary and caucus results are given to the remaining viable candidates. Delegates won based on results in congressional districts become free agents, who can support the candidate of his or her choice on the first ballot at the convention.

The first four states were always more about momentum more than math. Super Tuesday states offer a trove of 1,344 new delegates based on how candidates finish. Just 155 delegates have been awarded so far. (AP)

Jewish Democrats are up the proverbial tree if Bernie Sanders ends up being their party’s presidential candidate. He is an enigma to Jews of all political stripes because of his overt antipathy to Israel, its policies and its current leader. Throw in his embrace of those who are openly proud Jew haters. Jews have consistently been supporters of the Democrat Party since FDR came on the scene nearly 90 years ago. Now, with Sanders heading the candidate pack, many are having serious doubts about the kid from Brooklyn as top dog of the party. And rightly so!

A February poll by the impartial Jewish Electorate Institute found that although Jews largely remain Democrats, 45% of them had an unfavorable view of Sanders as president. Democrat insiders are concerned about these numbers in strategic states such as Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and  Pennsylvania, where Jews turn out in large numbers to vote and their votes could also turn around the House in areas where they live. And don’t forget that, according to the Jewish Business News, 50% of all donations to the Democrat Party come from Jews. All problems to face if Sanders is the eventual  candidate.

Sanders has made a career out of turning his back on his people, his faith and his heritage. Long ago, as a student at Brooklyn College and then the University of Chicago, Bernie embraced socialism, and became embroiled in the far-left wing radical path in terms of solving social issues. He also learned that Israel was soon to become the “bogeyman” of the Middle East in the eyes of the radical leftists which he now swore allegiance to and did everything in his power to distance himself from the establishment Jews.

We’ve got to face the reality that while Bernie falsely states that he “is a proud Jew,”  why did he shun this year’s AIPAC conference while proudly steaming up J Street’s annual event with his Israel bashing words? And why do his vehement backers include the two Jew hating congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib? Linda Sarsour, the Democrat Women’s March leader is a major factor on his campaign staff. His selection for co-chair of his Virginia campaign is Abrar Omeish, who served as president of the Muslim Brotherhood founded, Muslim Students Association.

Would these professional Jew haters attach themselves and support a candidate who would look upon and treat Israel favorably as a partner were he to occupy the White House? Not only has Bernie stated that he would consider moving our Embassy out of Jerusalem to kiss up to the Palestinians but he has labeled Israel as a “racist state”  and threatened to stop U.S. monetary and military aid to the Jewish nation if he were elected. And getting back to this week’s AIPAC shindig, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, referred to Bernie Sanders as, “a liar, an ignorant fool or both. We don’t want him in Israel!” If Bernie is not wanted in Israel, we don’t want him in the White House. Remember that if he’s on the ticket in November.

By: Thomas Beaumont, Meg Kinnard, & Steve Peoples

Pete Buttigieg, who rose from being a small-town Midwestern mayor to a barrier-breaking, top-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, is ending his campaign.

Three people with knowledge of Buttigieg’s decision told The Associated Press he began informing campaign staff on Sunday. They were not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

His campaign said Buttigieg will speak Sunday night in South Bend, Indiana.

The decision came just a day after one of Buttigieg’s leading rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden, scored a resounding victory in South Carolina that sparked new pressure on the party’s moderate wing to coalesce behind Biden.

Buttigieg had been critical of Biden, charging that the 77-year-old lifelong politician was out of step with today’s politics. But his criticism had shifted in recent days more toward front-runner Bernie Sanders, a polarizing progressive who was benefiting from the sheer number of candidates dividing up the moderate vote.

Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden traded voicemails on Sunday but did not speak, according to a source with knowledge of the attempted conversations. Buttigieg made the first call to tell Biden of his decision, then Biden returned the call. The pair missed each other because of travel logistics.

Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate to seriously contend for the presidency, tried to make the case that his party thrived when it embraced candidates who offered generational change. But the 38-year-old Afghanistan war veteran ended up being more successful at winning older voters while Sanders, 78, captured the energy of younger ones.

“The Pete Buttigieg story isn’t over. It’s just beginning,” said Democratic strategist David Axelrod. “He’s 38 years old. He’s vaulted himself into the national conversation. He obviously has work to do on some things that — some weaknesses we’ve seen in this election — but whenever there is a conversation again about Democratic candidates, he’ll be in that conversation. And that’s a remarkable achievement, given where he started a year ago.”

Voters saw Buttigieg in the more moderate lane of the Democratic field, and he flourished early with a top finish in the Iowa caucuses and a close second place finish in New Hampshire. But as the race moved to more diverse states, less dependent on college-educated voters, Buttigieg struggled.

Despite robust organizations in Iowa and New Hampshire and supporters who included an influx of former independents and Republicans, Buttigieg failed to overcome daunting questions about his ability to draw African American support key to the Democratic base.

He earned just 3% of the nonwhite vote in South Carolina’s Saturday primary, according to AP VoteCast, a a wide-ranging survey of the electorate.

As mayor of a city that is 25% black, Buttigieg faced criticism for firing the first African American police chief in the history of South Bend and for his handling of the case of a white police officer who fatally shot an armed black man in June.

A Black Lives Matter group from South Bend released a statement saying it was “excited” that Buttigieg left the race. “We hope that he learned his lesson — that neoliberalism and anti-Black policies will no longer be tolerated,” the group wrote.

After his unexpected rise to contention in Iowa and New Hampshire last fall, Buttigieg became the target of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for the high-dollar fundraisers he was hosting, notably one in a wine cave in California.

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar also went at Buttigieg in the months before the caucuses for lacking national experience. She noted that he had lost his only statewide race as a candidate for Indiana treasurer in 2010, while she had won three statewide terms in Minnesota in part by carrying Republican-heavy regions.

Buttigieg presented a starkly different figure on the debate stage than the other leading candidates — all septuagenarians — and drew admirers for his calm, reasoned demeanor and rhetorical skills that reflected his Harvard-trained, Rhodes scholar background but that some voters and operatives described as “robotic.”

Buttigieg had modeled his campaign somewhat on that of former President Barack Obama, who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses largely based on a message of unity and by drawing in a healthy bloc of first-time caucus participants, often the key in a crowded, high-turnout contest.

Jim Ward, a volunteer on the campaign in South Bend, said he and others were at the local campaign office training at around 6 p.m. when they learned of Buttigieg’s decision.

“They got word and left rather quickly,” he said in a text with the AP, noting that he had mixed emotions.

“I am so proud the campaign and proud of Pete for making this decision when he’s making it and not prolonging the campaign any longer than necessary,” Ward said. “I am just so, so sad that it didn’t work out this time.” (Associated Press)

Edited by: TJVNews.com 

Former Vice President Joe Biden has overwhelmingly won the South Carolina Democratic primary, reviving his faltering campaign and building momentum going into next week’s crucial Super Tuesday race, when 14 states hold nominating contests.

After Biden’s poor showings in the first three nominating contests, analysts predicted his campaign would be over if he did not win big in South Carolina, where he was heavily favored based on his strong support from African Americans, who make up a large percentage of state Democratic voters.

Not only did Biden beat Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who came into the South Carolina race as the national front-runner, but he did so handily, showing voters he still has the ability to mount a credible challenge to Sanders.

Results from more than 60% of precincts showed Biden had won about 50% of the vote. Sanders was a distant second, with 19%. Tom Steyer, a billionaire and philanthropist who has invested substantial time and money campaigning in South Carolina, was in third place, with 11% of the vote.

Steyer suspended his campaign following the results.

Biden told a jubilant crowd of supporters in Columbia, S.C., Saturday night, “For all of you who have been knocked down … and counted out, this is your campaign.

“We are very much alive,” he added.

Exit polling, taken before polls closed Saturday, showed Biden won strong support from black voters, people older than 45 and self-described moderates.

South Carolina was considered Biden’s “firewall” because of the large percentage of African American voters who have long been loyal to the former vice president who served under Barack Obama, the first African American to be elected president.

The polling by Edison Research found that nearly 8 out of 10 primary voters in South Carolina had a favorable view of Biden.

It also showed that about 6 in 10 voters said influential South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden was a factor in their decision of how to vote. Biden received a much-needed boost Wednesday when Clyburn endorsed him.

The South Carolina primary, the first Southern state to vote in the Democratic nominating contest, provided the first substantial indication of how well candidates are performing among African American voters, a critical Democratic constituency that makes up about 60% of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate, and 27% of the state’s population.

Exit polls showed that more than half of the Democratic primary voters Saturday were African American. However, that is down slightly from the number of African American primary voters in the state in 2016.

Biden, who was the early Democratic front-runner, stumbled in the first three primary and caucus contests, finishing fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and a distant second in Nevada. He has struggled to raise money and spark enthusiasm among rank-and-file Democrats.

After Biden’s victory Saturday, former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe endorsed the former vice president. McAuliffe said he would campaign with Biden in Virginia Beach Sunday.

Sanders, an independent senator and self-described democratic socialist, had come into South Carolina as the national front-runner after securing a close second-place finish in Iowa and victories in New Hampshire and Nevada. The races Super Tuesday will show whether Biden’s victory in South Carolina has halted Sander’s momentum.

Other Democratic candidates who received votes Saturday were former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who took 8% of the vote in early results. Senator Elizabeth Warren received 7%, Senator Amy Klobuchar 3% and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard 1%.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg was again, by choice, absent from the ballot in South Carolina after also skipping the first three nominating contests. Exit polling Saturday showed he had the lowest favorability rating among voters in South Carolina, with only about a quarter viewing him favorably.

Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, faces his first test during Super Tuesday.

A number of states with considerable African American populations will hold primaries Super Tuesday, when more than one-third of all delegates for the Democratic National Convention in July are at stake. Democratic candidates are seeking to win the nomination in their quest to derail President Donald Trump’s reelection bid in the November general election.

South Carolina held an open primary that allowed registered voters to cast ballots in the primary of their choice. The state Republican Party canceled its primary, ceding the contest to Trump. The cancellation prompted some Republicans, who greatly outnumber Democrats in the state, to say they would vote for Sanders in the Democratic primary, believing he would be easier for Trump to defeat in November.

There are 54 pledged delegates at stake in South Carolina’s Democratic primary who will be proportionately divided among the candidates who exceed a 15% threshold of the total votes cast.(VOA News)

By: Steve Herman

President Trump, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and members of the administration’s coronavirus task force, on Saturday sought to reassure the country as the first domestic death from the new disease was reported.

Trump called for the media and politicians “not do anything to incite a panic because there’s no reason to panic at all.”

“Whatever the circumstance, we’re prepared,” he said.

Trump’s administration is imposing further travel restrictions related to Iran due to a significant coronavirus outbreak there and issuing “do not travel” warnings for the regions of Italy and South Korea that have been hardest hit by COVID-19.

Trump has authorized a ban on foreign nationals who have traveled to Iran in the past 14 days, announced by Pence, who added that the State Department is working with the Italian and South Korean governments to enhance screenings in those countries of individuals traveling to the United States.  

Additional travel restrictions could be imposed, including along the border with Mexico. “

We’re thinking about all borders,” Trump said.

The president took to the podium in the Brady Briefing Room in the White House West wing shortly after officials in the state of Washington, in the northwest United States, announced the country’s first COVID-19 death.

Trump, at his second news conference in four days about the virus, said, “If you’re healthy, you’ll probably go through a process and you’ll be fine.”

Other health officials stressed that they expect most of the of COVID-19 fatalities will be older people with existing serious health problems.

Worldwide, 15% to 20% of those who have contracted the virus have needed advanced medical care, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said.

Trump announced he will meet Monday with executives of pharmaceutical companies to discuss the development of a coronavirus vaccine.

Asked by VOA what powers he could invoke to expedite the drug approval process so a coronavirus vaccine could be deployed quicker, Trump said, “Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, this process will go very quickly.”

The head of the Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn, added: “We’re using our authorities in an expedited fashion to help with the development of therapeutics, particularly around the coronavirus.”

Hahn said a policy was issued Saturday morning “that allows us to have a lot of flexibility around the development of diagnostic test” and that is expected to also have a significant impact in expediting approvals of a vaccine.

The timing of the unusual Saturday afternoon briefing underscored the seriousness of the crisis for the administration, which has faced criticism for a tardy and disorganized response to the spread of the disease, especially from Democratic Party leaders in Congress.

Asked about his remarks the previous evening at a political rally referring to the coronavirus crisis as the latest hoax of the Democrats, Trump said he was not intending to minimize the coronavirus threat.“

Again, the hoax was used in respect to Democrats and what they were saying,” Trump said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers also have said his request for an additional $2.5 billion to defend against the virus was not enough. Trump has said he is willing to accept billions more from Congress to fight the disease.

Amid the coronavirus fears, U.S. stock indexes suffered their largest drops the past week since the 2008 global financial crisis.“

The markets will all come back,” Trump said, again encouraging the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank, to cut interest rates.“

I think the Fed has a very important role, especially psychological,” he said. “If you look at it, the Fed has a massive impact.” (VOA News)