Politico: “Pete Buttigieg is going delegate hunting. Despite a brutal Super Tuesday map unlikely to hand him any statewide wins, the former South Bend mayor is looking to reinforce his claim as a Democratic alternative to Bernie Sanders by racking up delegates in individual congressional districts on Super Tuesday.”

“It’s a national version of Buttigieg’s path to first place in Iowa’s state delegate race — crossing the viability threshold everywhere, pending a recount — which Buttigieg hopes to replicate on Tuesday, when 14 states weigh in on the Democratic primary, despite a splintered field and limited resources.”

“Buttigieg’s campaign said in a memo that its objective on March 3 is to ‘minimize’ Sanders’ margins and maximize ‘delegate accumulation by [congressional] district, not states.’ Anticipating a drawn-out primary process, Buttigieg is looking to survive deeper into the calendar, making it to mid-March contests in the Midwest that might provide more opportunities for him.”

Politico: “Bloomberg, who spent months ignoring his Democratic opponents and focusing his firepower on Donald Trump, is still counting on a big delegate haul next week. But several sources close to and involved in the campaign have acknowledged concerns about his recent internal and public polling.”

“They said they were relieved by Bloomberg’s improved debate performance in South Carolina Tuesday night, including his opening attack on Sanders and his handling of a repeat grilling from Elizabeth Warren on his private company’s treatment of women. (After Warren tore into him in the first debate, he agreed to allow women who signed non-disclosure agreements related to him to speak freely.)”

New York Times: “The no-end-in-sight nature of the contest for the Democratic nomination is alarming those in the party who are hoping to blunt the momentum of the front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The most likely way they believe that could happen — a critical mass of the senator’s rivals drop out so voters can coalesce around a single alternative — seems like the least likely outcome.”

“The irony is thick. Mr. Sanders, the candidate many establishment Democrats fear would have the most trouble beating President Trump in November, is benefiting from some of the same dynamics that helped Mr. Trump stampede to the Republican nomination four years ago.”

Joe Biden said that some of his 2020 Democratic primary rivals should consider exiting the race if they are unable to demonstrate an ability to win over minority voters in the upcoming South Carolina primary, the Charleston Post & Courier reports.

Said Biden: “They would have to consider dropping out, not because I want them to or anybody else does, but because the victories and losses are going to dictate it.”

He added: “How do you stay in if you have demonstrated you can’t get any African American support? How do you stay in if you don’t get support in South Carolina? So I just think the process is going to take care of that. I don’t think it requires anybody to say, ‘get out of the race.'”

Former president Barack Obama is calling on South Carolina television stations to stop running an ad from a super PAC supporting President Trump that uses Obama’s words out of context in a misleading attack on former vice president Joe Biden, the Washington Post reports.

Greg Sargent: “The ad hitting Biden from the Committee to Defend the President is a remarkable piece of work: It weaponizes audio of former president Barack Obama against Biden, in what is clearly an effort to turn African American voters against him.”

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale briefed Republican senators about the campaign’s effort to expand the electoral map and assure Trump’s path to reelection, Politico reports.

Among the states Parscale mentioned as potential targets are Minnesota and New Mexico, which are both still Democratic on the consensus forecast map.

President Trump’s campaign is suing the New York Times for libel over an opinion piece that claimed his campaign had an “overarching deal” with Russian President Vladimir Putin to trade election help for a “new pro-Russian foreign policy.”

President Trump’s campaign “said it would lease 15 retail properties in predominantly black neighborhoods across swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania, where it will build welcoming ‘community centers’ that sell merchandise, register voters and spread the word about Trump policies that have helped black communities,” the New York Times reports.

Axios says the campaign plans to open 15 field offices: five in Florida, three in North Carolina, two each in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and one each in Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Mike Bloomberg has vowed as a Democratic candidate for president to “strengthen entitlement programs,” CNN reports.

But when he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg twice compared Social Security to a “Ponzi scheme” and repeatedly said cuts to that program as well as Medicare and Medicaid had to be part of any serious solution to reducing the federal deficit.

Said Bloomberg: “I don’t know if Bernie Madoff got his idea from there, but if there’s ever a Ponzi scheme, people say Madoff was the biggest? Wrong. Social Security is, far and away.”

The Wesleyan Media Project suggests political ad spending in the 2020 presidential race may reach $1 billion in ad spending before Super Tuesday.

Said project director Travis Ridout: “Clearly, ad spending by both Bloomberg and Steyer is in a whole different league. Traditionally, a lack of money has helped to winnow candidates from nominations races, but that dynamic is different this year in part because there are two candidates with almost unlimited funds.”

In 1978, the Rutland Herald asked people their New Year’s resolutions.

While most people gave answers like, “I want to quit smoking” or “I want to finish high school,” Bernie Sanders’ resolution was: “I want to make people wake up to the radical change need in society.”