Boston Globe: “With a little more than six months to go until the 2020 New Hampshire primary, Sanders can no longer take the state for granted. He has gone from being the unquestioned front-runner to second place — and sliding.”

Politico: “If Bernie Sanders’ team had its way, every reporter covering the Vermont senator would put out a tweet disclosing their unvarnished, personal feelings about the candidate.”

“It’s not going to happen, but campaign manager Faiz Shakir thinks he knows what it would reveal anyway.”

Said Shakir: “This isn’t intended to be a sweeping generalization of all journalists, but there are a healthy number who just find Bernie annoying, discount his seriousness, and wish his supporters and movement would just go away.”

“Bernie Sanders may be falling behind some of his rivals in the crowded Democratic presidential field, dipping in early polls and seeing his campaign outraised by at least two rivals. But this week, he opened a new campaign office here and is already investing in states holding primaries eight months away,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The message from the Vermont senator: I’m not going anywhere.”

Politico: “Even though the Sanders team would never call it a ‘reset,’ his aides are sharpening a new line of attack against his rivals and experimenting with different ways to connect with hard-to-reach voters as the race heats up. They’re also continuing to shift from big rallies to more intimate events in the nation’s early states, such as ice cream socials and selfie lines — an acknowledgment that Sanders needs to adopt a more personal approach and participate in additional retail politicking to win.”

“And even Sanders’ allies admit that he faces unique difficulties in 2020: Unlike in 2016, many of Sanders’ opponents have adopted major planks of his platform, giving voters more than one progressive candidate to choose from in the race. In recent weeks, some Sanders supporters have questioned if he should take a different approach in the debates, after not participating in mock sessions while prepping for the first showdown and ultimately failing to take on Biden in a memorable way.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders raised $18 million in the past three months, the New York Times reports.

Sanders’s total was less than the $24.8 million that Mayor Pete Buttigieg collected in the quarter, an eye-popping sum that the Buttigieg campaign revealed on Monday.

When asked if he would commit to supporting the Democratic nominee if it’s clear it won’t be him, Sen. Bernie Sanders would not make any such commitment to NBC News.

Instead, he talked about his 2016 race: “Some people say that maybe if the system was not rigged against me, I would have won the nomination.”

Jonathan Chait: “While Sanders is coyly hiding behind the ‘some people say’ formulation, he is threatening to repeat the tactics he used in 2016, when he called the process ‘rigged’ and withheld his support long after the outcome was decided.”

“As a presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has often defended his vote for a controversial 1994 crime bill as a hold-your-nose compromise that included measures popular within the Democratic Party, such as a ban on assault weapons. As a result, Sanders’ support for the massive anti-crime package hasn’t come under the same level of scrutiny that has at times stuck to other Democratic candidates,” NBC News reports.

“But an NBC News review of his past statements shows that Sanders also backed some of the legislation’s key get-tough-on-crime provisions, which he now says ‘created a very broken system,’ — a part of his public record that may surprise some Sanders supporters.”

Jonathan Bernstein: “After the 2016 election, I’m not counting anyone out. That said: I think it’s starting to sink in that Senator Bernie Sanders is right at the fringes of plausibility. At best.”

“That’s what I’m seeing from the mainstream media, some liberal bloggers and sophisticated polling analysis. Recent Iowa polls show Sanders at about 15%, essentially in a three-person race for second place with Senator Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. That’s for a candidate who won half the vote there in 2016.”

“And while Sanders is faring somewhat better nationally, that’s mainly because almost all the other candidates remain unknown to voters. As Nate Silver points out, only about 8% of Democrats say they’re definitely supporting Sanders. In other words, it’s entirely plausible that Sanders could fail to reach the delegate threshold in Iowa, Nevada, and South Carolina (and possibly New Hampshire).”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called for an impeachment inquiry against President Trump, becoming the tenth 2020 presidential hopeful to do so, The Hill reports.

Said Sanders: “I believe the Judiciary Committee should begin impeachment inquiries. That is inquiries, not impeachment, to determine whether or not Trump has committed impeachable offenses.”

Associated Press: “Three months into his second presidential campaign, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is struggling with some of the same challenges that sank his last bid: doubts about his electability, worries about support from minority voters and an opponent with deep ties to the party establishment.”

The Hill: Democrats worry Sanders could play spoiler.

Politico: “This time around, the candidate with an aversion to schmoozing and a reputation as a loner in the Senate is bowing to a side of politics he’s long despised. Sanders is making dozens of calls each week to elected officials, labor leaders and party chiefs, according to his aides. In between his rallies, he regularly meets with politicians behind closed doors. And surrogates including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), the co-chair of his campaign, are aggressively courting House members to get on board.”

“All of that is standard fare for a top-tier presidential campaign, but it represents a major shift for Sanders. His willingness to step up his efforts to win institutional support is the latest sign that he recognizes that shunning the Democratic establishment might work for a long-shot outsider campaign, but won’t cut it if he truly wants to win the nomination.”

PBS: Sanders’ 2020 challenges look a lot like 2016

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) spoke with Sydney Ember of the New York Times:

NYT: In the top of our story, we talk about the rally you attended in Managua and a wire report at the time said that there were anti-American chants from the crowd.

SANDERS: The United States at that time — I don’t know how much you know about this — was actively supporting the Contras to overthrow the government. So that there’s anti-American sentiment? I remember that, I remember that event very clearly.

NYT: You do recall hearing those chants? I think the wire report has them saying, “Here, there, everywhere, the Yankee will die.”

SANDERS: They were fighting against American —— Huh huh —— yes, what is your point?

NYT: I wanted to ——

SANDERS: Are you shocked to learn that there was anti-American sentiment?

NYT: Do you think if you had heard that directly, you would have stayed at the rally?

SANDERS: I think Sydney, with all due respect, you don’t understand a word that I’m saying.

“Bernie Sanders — who swore off big-money fundraisers and criticized Hillary Clinton’s fundraising as ‘obscene’ during the 2016 campaign — is changing his approach as the scramble for Democratic campaign cash heats up,” Politico reports.

“The Vermont senator has decided to hold in-person fundraising events where donors of all means will be invited and the media will be allowed. He has also hired a fundraiser to oversee the effort, a position he did not have in his 2016 bid.”

President Trump claimed the Democratic Party is again trying to manipulate its presidential primary elections, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “The Democratic National Committee, sometimes referred to as the DNC, is again working its magic in its quest to destroy Crazy Bernie Sanders… for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden. Here we go again Bernie, but this time please show a little more anger and indignation when you get screwed!”

New York Times: “On Saturday, Mr. Sanders’s campaign plans to kick off its national organizing program with what it says are roughly 5,000 events across every state. Mr. Sanders plans to address supporters via livestream.”

“The date for the organizing events was set weeks ago. But the timing is fortuitous. With Mr. Biden’s entry, the race has kicked into a new gear, and the organizing effort gives Mr. Sanders — who has been running second to Mr. Biden in most early polls — a fresh opportunity to lock up supporters and reassert his grass-roots strength.”

The Atlantic: “He’s counting on winning Iowa and New Hampshire, where he was already surprisingly strong in 2016, and hoping that Cory Booker and Kamala Harris will split the black electorate in South Carolina and give him a path to slip through there, too. And then, Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.”