Politico: “Familiar presidential battlegrounds—not just Ohio and Virginia, but also Colorado, Iowa and more—are fading from the radar. States that haven’t experienced a top-of-the-ticket dogfight in decades—like Arizona, Georgia, Minnesota and maybe even Texas—are suddenly poised to play a pivotal role.”

“You can argue about whether Minnesota—a cradle of liberalism that produced Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone—is a pipe dream for Trump in 2020. Or whether Texas—where Republicans hold all nine statewide elected offices, both Senate seats and both chambers of the Legislature—will truly be in play in November. But one thing seems increasingly inarguable: This presidential race will be fought on electoral terrain that would have been unthinkable four years ago, before Trump blew everything up.”

See the latest consensus electoral map, based on the most recent forecasts.

Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) told CNN he is ending his uphill challenge against Donald Trump for the 2020 Republican presidential nomination, after suffering a crushing loss in the Iowa GOP caucuses in which he received only 1% of the vote.

New York Times: “Mr. Bloomberg told the group that he did not want their money and would not accept it if they offered it. What he wanted, he said, was their personal support.”

“It was the kind of appeal that only a self-funding billionaire could deliver. And indeed, Mr. Bloomberg went a step further: If they felt compelled to write a check, he told them to send it to the Democratic National Committee or the progressive group Swing Left.”

“Mr. Bloomberg has made versions of that pitch at several events in recent weeks, in major cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York. It has unnerved — and sometimes intrigued — supporters of other Democratic candidates, who fear that Mr. Bloomberg’s charm offensive could discourage giving to other candidates who lack multibillion-dollar personal fortunes with which to fund their efforts.”

“The Navy secretary ousted by President Trump said Thursday that he would endorse Michael R. Bloomberg for president, a high-profile defection that Mr. Bloomberg’s allies hope will convince Democratic voters that their best chance of defeating Mr. Trump is the former mayor of New York,” the New York Times reports.

“Richard Spencer, who was ousted as Navy secretary in November after he publicly disagreed with Mr. Trump’s intervention in an extraordinary war crimes case involving a member of the Navy SEALs, is a lifelong Republican.”

A new Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk University poll in New Hampshire finds Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic primary with 24%, followed closely by Pete Buttigieg at 23%, Elizabeth Warren at 13% and Joe Biden at 11%.

Less than 10 hours after announcing that he was “calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass,” Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said he had actually been calling only for isolated recanvassing of areas where irregularities had been reported in the caucus results, the New York Times reports.

“With 100% of precincts reported, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders are in a near tie in state delegates in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses,” the Des Moines Register reports.

“The complete results show Buttigieg with 26.198% of delegate equivalents and Bernie Sanders with 26.128%.”

“The head of the national Democratic Party has already demanded the results be recanvassed. That demand, plus potential errors in the count, mean that the results may not be final and will likely be disputed.”