“More than 234,000 voters in Wisconsin would be made unable to cast their ballot unless they register again before the next election under a lawsuit filed Wednesday that liberals fear could dampen turnout among Democrats in the 2020 presidential race,” the AP reports.
“The lawsuit could affect how many voters are able to cast ballots in both the April presidential primary and November 2020 general election in Wisconsin, a key swing state that both sides are targeting.”
A new Quinnipiac poll in South Carolina finds Joe Biden leading Democrats with 33%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 13%, Bernie Sanders at 11%, Pete Buttigieg at 6%, Tom Steyer at 5%, Andrew Yang at 4%, Kamala Harris at 3% and Cory Booker at 2%.
No other candidate tops 1%, and 18% of likely voters are undecided.
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A new University of Northern Florida poll in South Carolina finds Joe Biden leading the Democratic field with 36%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 10%, Elizabeth Warren at 10%, Tom Steyer at 8%, Kamala Harris at 4%, Pete Buttigieg at 3% and Cory Booker at 2%.
A progressive nonprofit funded mainly by Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer is investing $45 million as part of a youth voter turnout campaign ahead of the 2020 election, The Hill reports.
“Elizabeth Warren prohibits special access for big donors — but her campaign treasurer and another close ally are organizing wealthy supporters for Warren behind the scenes while she rips on the rich,” Politico reports.
“The pair, Boston businessman Paul Egerman and activist Shanti Fry, have maintained campaign titles as Warren’s finance co-chairs, even as her campaign sheared other links to the Democratic donor class earlier this year by forswearing closed-door, in-person fundraising events of the sort Warren did for years in the Senate.”
A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 4% support for Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic presidential race.
“Without Bloomberg in the race, 30% of Democrats said that they would vote for Biden. With Bloomberg added to the list of contenders, 26% of Democrats say that they plan to vote for Biden. In other words, the minimal support that Bloomberg does have appears to come at Biden’s expense.”
“With a rapidly growing campaign staff and a big investment in infrastructure, Bernie Sanders is going all in on the California ground game,” the San Jose Mercury News reports.
“The Vermont senator’s campaign has opened five offices in California — far more than top rivals Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, who have two each, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t opened one. Sanders’ staff says they plan to set up at least 10 more offices by the end of the year and already have hired 40 full-time paid staffers in the state.”
“Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) began the Trump era by negotiating with Democrats on immigration and co-authoring legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller. He even briefly opposed President Trump’s national emergency to build a border wall,” Politico reports.
“But now the North Carolina Republican’s independent streak is fading. He’s deploying the president as a shield against a conservative primary challenger and he’s hugging Trump tightly.”
“In the history of American politics, one fact distills the nation’s enduring suspicion of cities: Voters have never elected a sitting mayor to the presidency,” the New York Times reports.
“Americans have seldom embraced anyone who’s even touched the job. Calvin Coolidge was the last president, one of just three in 230 years, to have been a mayor at any point. He led Northampton, Mass. — a modest town, really — for two years.”
“But as the Democratic Party becomes ever more aligned with urban areas, its presidential field is now studded with politicians whose boasts include running a city.”
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s two-part plan to pass a public option as a transition into Medicare for All — and then full-blown Medicare for All a few years later — has revealed the difficulty of appealing to both the pragmatic and progressive wings of the party,” Axios reports.
New York Times: “After spending months in anxious passivity, staking their hopes on Joseph Biden and little else, moderate Democrats appear suddenly determined to fight for control of their party in the 2020 elections.”
“The shift in attitude has come in fits and starts over the last few weeks, seemingly more as an organic turn in the political season than as a product of coordinated action by party leaders. But each assertive act has seemed to build on the one before, starting with a debate-stage clash last month over ‘Medicare for all’ and culminating in recent days with the entry of two new moderate candidates into the primary, Michael R. Bloomberg and Deval Patrick, and a gentle warning from former President Barack Obama that Democrats should not overestimate voters’ appetite for drastic change.”
Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign used a stock photo of a woman from Kenya to promote its Frederick Douglass Plan for Black America, The Intercept reports.
“Joe Biden doubled down on his reserved stance over legalizing marijuana and said his questions over its status as a gateway drug hold him back from supporting legalization,” Business Insider reports.
Said Biden: “The truth of the matter is, there’s not nearly been enough evidence that has been acquired as to whether or not it is a gateway drug. It’s a debate, and I want a lot more before I legalize it nationally. I want to make sure we know a lot more about the science behind it.”
“Democrats are bracing for a months-long, drawn-out primary fight featuring several viable candidates that could drag into the summer,” the Washington Post reports.
“That scenario is prompting the campaigns, several of which have signed up veteran delegate counters, to begin strategizing for a protracted nomination slog, with some even playing out scenarios for dealmaking in the weeks leading up to the Democratic convention in July.”
“Two days before Senator Elizabeth Warren rolled out a fundamental reimagining of America’s health care and tax system — a $20.5 trillion package that would dwarf all her previous plans combined — she was working the phones to personally preview her proposal and sell it to a select group of political influencers,” the New York Times reports.
“One was Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, who had written skeptically days earlier that her plan to pay for ‘Medicare for all’ was a ‘make-or-break moment’ for her, if not the whole 2020 race. Another call was to Representative Pramila Jayapal, the lead sponsor of Medicare for all legislation in the House and a leading liberal as the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”
“Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who has moved toward joining the Democratic presidential race, apologized Sunday for his handling of stop-and-frisk, a controversial policing tactic that has been criticized as a kind of racial profiling and that Bloomberg defended as recently as early this year,” the Washington Post reports.
“Bloomberg expressed regrets at a predominantly black megachurch he has visited many times, telling congregants that he didn’t understand the full effects on African American and Latino communities quickly enough and should have curtailed the program sooner.”
“The speech served as one of the clearest indicators yet that the billionaire businessman might soon join the crowded Democratic primary.”
A new CBS News/YouGov poll in New Hampshire finds Elizabeth Warren leading the Democratic field with 31%, followed by Joe Biden at 22%, Bernie Sanders at 20% and Pete Buttigieg at 16%.
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.
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