DALLAS -- Former Vice President Joe Biden's Democratic presidential bid picked up steam on Monday with the endorsements of two former 2020 rivals - Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar - who planned to join him on the stage at a rally on the eve of the Super Tuesday primary elections
But Biden still faces a challenge from billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg among voters hoping the party will nominate a moderate.
Klobuchar, a senator from Minnesota, will become the third 2020 candidate in as many days to drop out of the race when she announces the suspension of her campaign in Dallas, where she will also publicly back Biden, a Klobuchar aide said.
Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who ended his White House bid on Sunday, also plans to endorse Biden in Dallas, a top adviser said.
Biden is fresh off a resounding victory in Saturday's South Carolina primary and is aiming for a strong showing on Super Tuesday against Senator Bernie Sanders, the national frontrunner and a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont.
The Super Tuesday contests offer the biggest one-day haul of the 1,991 delegates needed to win the party's nomination at its national convention in July, with about 1,357 delegates, or nearly one-third of the total number, up for grabs.
Fourteen states - California, Texas, Virginia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Vermont, Colorado, Utah, North Carolina and Maine - as well as American Samoa and Democrats living abroad cast ballots on Tuesday. (The primary for expatriate Americans is scheduled to run through March 10.)
Bloomberg, a late entrant to the race, will make his ballot-box debut. He is betting the $500 million of his own money he has poured into his campaign will allow him to make up for not competing in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.
Five candidates - Biden, Bloomberg, Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and US Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii - remain in the running for the nomination to take on Republican President Donald Trump in November's election, down from more than 20 earlier in the campaign.
Bloomberg and Biden have emerged as the main contenders for the votes of moderate Democrats, while Sanders is the progressive front-runner nationally, eclipsing Warren.
BIDEN'S MOMENTUM
Biden's high-stakes triumph in South Carolina, where his campaign had said his popularity with black voters would propel him to victory after early disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, helped winnow the field.
Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer also gave up his campaign on Saturday night after a third-place finish in the Southern state in which he had invested most heavily.
One of Buttigieg's top fundraisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some of his supporters planned to donate to Biden's campaign.
Sanders' momentum might not be easily slowed. On Monday, his campaign downplayed the efforts by moderates to present a united front.
"The establishment is nervous, not because we can't beat Trump, but because we will," said Sanders' campaign manager, Faiz Shakir. "And when we do, the Democratic Party will again be a party of the working class."
It was not immediately clear who would immediately benefit from the departures of Buttigieg and Klobuchar. A Morning Consult poll taken Feb. 23 to 27, for example, before Buttigieg exited the race, showed that 21 percent of his supporters named Sanders as their second choice, 19 percent picked Biden, another 19 percent chose Warren and 17 percent favored Bloomberg.
Biden still lags his rivals in spending and organization in Super Tuesday states and beyond, but his campaign said on Sunday it had raised more than $10 million over the preceding two days.
Endorsements of the former vice president from elected officials and community leaders poured in on Monday as Democrats who believe a moderate is the best candidate to defeat Trump tried to circle the wagons around Biden.
Backing from Ohio Democrats including Representative Marcia Fudge and former Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory added to endorsements from Senator Tim Kaine and state House of Delegates Majority Leader Charniele Herring of Virginia. In Colorado, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has backed Biden. In California, Representative Gil Cisneros is supporting the former vice president.
On Wednesday, Hollywood mogul Sherry Lansing is hosting a fundraiser for Biden featuring Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Supporters of Sanders and Warren also rushed to weigh in for their candidates. The progressive magazine "The Nation" endorsed Sanders, and the women's fundraising organization Emily's List endorsed Warren.
Former President Barack Obama planned to wait until after the primaries to endorse a candidate, a source familiar with his thinking said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LAS VEGAS -- The top 6 candidates competing for the Democratic nomination to take on US President Donald Trump in November participated in the ninth presidential debate on Wednesday, with one quickly becoming the focus: Michael Bloomberg.
Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York mayor making his first debate appearance in the race, faced criticism from all his rivals on the stage in Las Vegas:
ELIZABETH WARREN
"We’re running against a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-face lesbians. And no I’m not talking about Donald Trump, I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg. Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies like redlining and stop-and-frisk."
Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, also criticized Bloomberg for reports that his namesake media company mistreated women employees. She called on him to release women who sued his company from non-disclosure agreements.
"I hope you heard what his defense was: I've been nice to some women. That just doesn't cut it. The mayor has to stand on his record and what we need to know is what's lurking out there."
"This is not just a question of the mayor's character. This is also a question about electability. We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many non-disclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against."
PETE BUTTIGIEG
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor went after both Bloomberg and US Senator Bernie Sanders.
"Most Americans don’t see where they fit if they have to choose between a socialist who thinks money is the root of all evil and a billionaire who thinks that money ought to be the root of all power. Let's put forward somebody who actually lives and works in the middle class neighborhood in an industrial Midwestern city. Let's put forward somebody who's actually a Democrat."
"We shouldn’t have to choose between one candidate who wants to burn this party down and another candidate who wants to buy this party out. We can do better."
JOE BIDEN
The former vice president assailed Bloomberg over the stop-and-frisk policing policy in New York City that was criticized for ensnaring disproportionate numbers of blacks and Latinos.
"The fact of the matter is he has not managed his city very well when he was there. He didn't get a whole lot done. He had stop-and-frisk - throwing close to 5 million young black men up against the wall - and when we came along in our administration, President Obama and I said we're going to send a mediator to stop it, he said that's unnecessary."
Biden said that the Obama administration worked to put an end to the policy.
"Let's get the facts straight. Let's get the order straight. It's not whether you apologize or not, it's the policy. The policy was abhorrent. And it was in fact a violation of every right people have."
AMY KLOBUCHAR
The Minnesota senator responded to reports of the Bloomberg campaign saying the other moderates should drop out to let him fight the liberal Sanders.
"I have been told as a woman, as someone that maybe no one thought was still going to be standing up on this stage, but I am because of pure grit ... I've been told many times to wait my turn and to step aside, and I’m not going to do that now ... I think we need something different than Donald Trump. I think don’t you look at Donald Trump and say, 'We need someone richer in the White House'.”
BERNIE SANDERS
"We are giving a voice to people who would say we are sick and tired of billionaires, like Mr. Bloomberg, seeing huge expansions of their wealth, while a half a million people sleep out on the street tonight ... Maybe it's time for the working class in this country to get a little bit of power in Washington, rather than your billionaire campaign."
Sanders added later: "Maybe we can talk about a billionaire saying that we should not raise the minimum wage, or that we should cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If that's a way to beat Donald Trump, wow, I would be very surprised."
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG
"I’m a philanthropist who didn’t inherit his money, but made his money. I’m spending that money to get rid of Donald Trump – the worst president we’ve ever had. And if I can get that done, it will be a great contribution to America and to my kids.”
Bloomberg said he had not mistreated women employees but defended his decision not to release those he settled with from non-disclosure agreements, saying they were made consensualy.
"We have a very few non-disclosure agreements. None of them accuse me of anything ... maybe they didn't like the jokes I told."
Bloomberg criticized his opponents, particularly Sanders, for advocating higher taxes on corporations and forcing unions onto boards.
"I can’t think of a better way that would make it easier for Donald Trump to get reelected than listening to this conversation. We’re not gonna throw out capitalism. We tried that, other countries tried that, it was called communism and it just didn’t work."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
