Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning that he had raised $18 million in February, and $5
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning that he had raised $18 million in February, and $5 million final night time alone.
“I believe we’ve bought an extended option to go, however this was an enormous increase for us,” he mentioned, smiling, when Jake Tapper requested whether or not he now thought of himself the front-runner. “We’re in a state of affairs the place we’re simply starting to boost the sort of cash that we thought we might be capable of increase on the entrance finish.”
His fund-raising complete for February shouldn’t be significantly spectacular: Elizabeth Warren raised greater than $29 million, and Bernie Sanders raised an enormous $46.5 million. However $5 million in a single night time is spectacular, and it gives some proof for Mr. Biden’s argument that his victory in South Carolina can revive his marketing campaign.
Many Democratic officers have been urging lower-performing candidates to finish their campaigns within the curiosity of consolidating assist round one progressive and one average. However when requested if his average opponents ought to drop out to strengthen him towards Bernie Sanders on the left, Mr. Biden demurred.
“I’m not going to presume to inform anybody they need to drop out,” he mentioned. “I believe everybody is aware of it’s going to be rather more troublesome to win again the Senate and the Home if Bernie is on the prime of the ticket, however that’s a judgment for them to make.”
Mr. Biden hammered that electability argument all through the interview, rejecting the concept that the keenness Mr. Sanders generates would carry Democrats to victory in November.
“The concept there’s a direct correlation between the variety of individuals at a rally and the quantity of people that end up — we had the most important turnout in South Carolina, and we gained each single solitary county,” he mentioned.
He argued that he, not Mr. Sanders, can be greatest for down-ballot candidates in states like Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina the place Democrats are hoping to flip Senate seats, and in addition that he can be higher in a position to enact his marketing campaign guarantees.
“Individuals aren’t on the lookout for a revolution, in my opinion — what they’re on the lookout for is outcomes,” he mentioned. “They’re on the lookout for getting issues accomplished, and Bernie doesn’t have an excellent monitor file of getting issues accomplished in america Congress.”
President Trump, in search of to sow seeds of division and chaos among the many Democrats, unleashed a recent sequence of Twitter taunts in a single day.
He prompt that Democrats had been plotting towards Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who was nonetheless main within the delegate rely even after his distant second-place end in South Carolina, however faces a rejuvenated foe in former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Trump has been attempting to take advantage of the perceived insecurities of Mr. Sanders and his supporters, who’re nonetheless smarting over the result of the celebration’s nominating contest towards Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“Democrats are working exhausting to destroy the identify and status of Loopy Bernie Sanders, and take the nomination away from him!” Mr. Trump mentioned.
On an evening when Mr. Biden tried to venture renewed enthusiasm for candidacy and a average different to Mr. Sanders, Mr. Trump mockingly supplied his congratulations to “sleepy Joe Biden.”
Mr. Trump additionally took intention at former New York Metropolis Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the previous hedge fund government Tom Steyer, who introduced on Saturday night time that he was exiting the race after ending third in South Carolina.
Mr. Steyer had saturated the airwaves in South Carolina with a $22 million promoting blitz — or about $33 per every of the 59,815 votes he obtained. He mustered 11.three p.c of the vote, failing to satisfy the 15 p.c minimal to be allotted delegates below the state’s major system.
Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Steyer and Mr. Bloomberg as “failed presidential candidates” and mentioned he would discover it exhausting to imagine that they might contribute to the Democratic Get together after the “actual politicians ate them up and spit them out!”
In one other tweet Sunday morning, Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Bloomberg and mentioned that Mr. Bloomberg’s political consultants had been propping him up after they knew that he was not a viable candidate.
PLAINS, Ga. — Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., got here right here Sunday morning for a breakfast with former President Jimmy Carter, who requested him the query many in Democratic politics are considering as Tremendous Tuesday approaches.
“He doesn’t know what he’s going to do after South Carolina,” Mr. Carter mentioned as he sat at a sun-splashed desk contained in the Buffalo Cafe together with his spouse,…