“Officials say turnout in Saturday’s Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina was the largest in state history,” the AP reports.
“Democratic Party officials said Monday that more than 539,000 votes were cast in the contest. That’s nearly 7,000 more than in 2008, the previous record.”
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc beat Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party-led Center-Left bloc in Israel’s third election on Monday winning 59 seats needed for a majority in the Knesset, according to exit polls on the major television networks,” the Jerusalem Post reports.
“While Netanyahu fell short of the 61 majority needed to form a ruling coalition, he is expected to begin immediately trying to recruit two defectors from the Center-Left camp who he would need to form a government.”
Axios: “The exit polls are not official results, but they project a strong performance from Netanyahu in Israel’s third elections in 10 months despite a looming corruption trial.”
New Yorker: “Parscale relied on Facebook to help him accomplish several campaign objectives, including persuasion, fund-raising, and G.O.T.V., or ‘get out the vote.’ Finding and motivating likely voters through traditional means, such as TV ads or door-to-door canvassing, is expensive and time-consuming compared with social media.”
Said Parscale: “We have almost two hundred and fifteen million hard-I.D. voter records in our database now.”
“Even if Trump were banned from every social network, his campaign would be able to reach supporters by text. According to Parscale, the campaign is on track to send ‘almost a billion texts, the most in history’—and texts are far more likely to be opened than e-mails, social-media posts, or news articles. ‘We’ve been working on this around the clock for three years,’ a senior official who works on the 2020 digital campaign told me.”
Pete Buttigieg will be joining Amy Klobuchar to publicly endorse Joe Biden at a rally in Texas later tonight.
Washington Post: “There’s a charter plane scheduled to go from South Bend to Dallas this evening, arriving not long after Biden’s rally begins.”
“The Buttigieg team has been silent about this for hours but it’s possible Biden does what few have been able to: Bring Klobuchar and Buttigieg together.”
“Even as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes blame for testing delays that may have led to hundreds of Americans being quietly infected with the coronavirus, officials inside the health department and the White House are increasingly pointing the finger at one leader: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who they say failed to coordinate the response, as agency chiefs waited for instructions that came too late and other deputies were largely cut out of the process,” Politico reports.
New from Jon Stewart: Irresistible.
The comedy is out in May and portrays Steve Carell as a Democratic political consultant who helps a retired Marine colonel, played by Chris Cooper, run for mayor in a small Wisconsin town.
Former Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential bid on Monday, saying the former vice president’s resume and stability make him the best candidate to beat President Trump, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Said Reid: “President Donald Trump has done unspeakable damage to our country, our institutions and the rule of law. Democrats need a candidate who can assemble the largest, most diverse coalition possible to defeat Trump and lead our country following the trauma of Trump’s presidency. That candidate is Joe Biden.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar will suspend her presidential campaign and endorse Joe Biden at a rally in Texas later tonight, the Washington Post reports.
Klobuchar is dropping out just before her home state, Minnesota, votes on Super Tuesday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders told the San Francisco Chronicle he would only pick a running mate who backs Medicare-for-all.
Said Sanders: “We will pick somebody who knows the experience of working families in this country, who has a history of fighting for those families, and somebody whose politics are similar to mine.”
He also sounded a warning against the party trying to deny him the nomination if he comes to Milwaukee with a plurality of pledged delegates: “I think that would look terrible, and I think that would lay the groundwork for a Trump victory. It would reflect on the Democratic Party in a very, very terrible way.”
Earlier for members: Bernie’s Most Likely Running Mate
A new Morning Consult poll shows Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic field nationally with 26%, followed by Joe Biden at 23%, Mike Bloomberg at 17%, Elizabeth Warren at 11%, Pete Buttigieg at 10% and Amy Kobuchar at 3%.
Biden jumped seven points since winning the South Carolina primary, while Sanders dropped three points.
Every single Democrat still running for president is spending more money on Super Tuesday television ads than Joe Biden, the big winner in South Carolina over the weekend, CBS News reports.
Even Tom Steyer beat out Biden’s spending despite the fact that Steyer dropped out of the race Saturday night.
Tom Steyer spent more than $1,600 for each vote he received in Democrats’ first four presidential nominating contests, the Daily Beast reports.
Vice: “Warren has spent the past days chasing frantically across the country in a desperate search for Super Tuesday delegates. But her biggest problem might be back at home. Warren faces the real risk of losing Massachusetts to Sanders, a blow that could knock her out of the race. And as Warren raced from South Carolina to Alabama to Texas, Sanders dropped into her home state this weekend to try to seal her fate.”
“Three separate polls released in recent days show he’s right. Sanders, from neighboring Vermont, has inched ahead of Warren in her home state, buoyed by his strong showing in the early states and Warren’s failure to finish higher than third place in any of them.”
“A home-state loss would be devastating to Warren. It’s hard to see how she would continue after Super Tuesday at that point, especially since Massachusetts shapes up as by far her best chance of winning a Super Tuesday state.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is planning for the possibility that President Trump could make an emergency declaration to bring in extra funds and personnel to assist the administration’s coronavirus response, according to internal documents obtained by NBC News.
New York Times: “Mr. Biden asked for Mr. Buttigieg’s support and the former mayor indicated he would consider the request. Mr. Buttigieg wants to sleep on the decision, he told aides, some of whom believe he should move quickly to endorse Mr. Biden.”
“Mr. Obama did not specifically encourage Mr. Buttigieg to endorse Mr. Biden, said the official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private conversations. But Mr. Obama did note that Mr. Buttigieg has considerable leverage at the moment and should think about how best to use it.”
President Trump defended the safety of holding campaign rallies with the coronavirus spreading, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “Well this was set up a long time ago, and others are… You could ask that to the Democrats… They’re all having rallies, that’s what they’re doing, they’re campaigning.”
He added: “I think it’s very safe.”
Trump will hold a campaign rally in North Carolina tonight.
This looks interesting: The Madman Theory: Trump Takes on the World by Jim Sciutto.
“From praising dictators to alienating allies, Trump has made chaos his calling card, and the world has suffered for it. Trump’s foreign policy is hurting the very people who have been on our side for more than seventy years, which leaves them, in turn, isolated and vulnerable without American support.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.