As Joe Biden builds momentum, Bernie Sanders ramps up attacks after Super Tuesday narrows field

WASHINGTON — Fresh off his Super Tuesday victories, Joe Biden picked up more momentum on Wednesday with the endorsement of Mike Bloomberg, who dropped out of the race, while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders trained his fire on the former vice president in what quickly has narrowed into a two-person race.

As Biden and Sanders appeared headed for a protracted showdown for the Democratic presidential nomination, the future of the only other remaining top candidate was unclear. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren retreated to Cambridge, where an aide said she met with close advisers to assess her path forward after a poor performance in Tuesday’s 14 primaries, including a disheartening third-place finish in her home state.

“The Joementum is real,” Biden’s campaign said in an e-mail to supporters as he prepared to attend a fund-raiser in Los Angeles Wednesday night. “The American people have spoken. And Joe Biden is sprinting towards the Democratic nomination.”

But Sanders showed he was prepared to put up a fight after his disappointing Super Tuesday, noting he and Biden would likely be roughly tied in convention delegates once the results from California are fully tabulated and launching two new ads attacking his rival in upcoming primary states.

“I think we go forward basically neck-and-neck,” Sanders told reporters in Burlington, Vt.

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Biden nabs endorsements from Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and O’Rourke ahead of Super Tuesday

HOUSTON — Former vice president Joe Biden brought his resurgent campaign to delegate-rich Texas on Monday, gaining the backing of one-time rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar amid an avalanche of endorsements as he sought to turn the momentum of his big South Carolina primary victory into success on Super Tuesday.

The day before voters here and in Massachusetts, California, and 11 other states head to the polls, moderate Democrats publicly rallied behind Biden in hopes he could stop progressive Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the race’s front-runner, from amassing an insurmountable lead in delegates needed to win the nomination. Biden’s campaign sent out news releases almost hourly all day touting new endorsements from state and federal lawmakers, party elders such as Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, and influential Democratic figures including Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of the Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

“I am here heart and soul,” Biden told an energetic crowd at Texas Southern University Monday, receiving the loudest cheers as he touted his strong alignment with minority communities and his ties to former president Barack Obama. “I take nothing for granted, nothing at all. I am asking you for your vote.”

“You got it,” a woman shouted from the overlook of the second floor.

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Sanders’ rise in Texas excites and worries those hoping to turn the state blue

HOUSTON — Ticking off his early state wins, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders coyly cautioned an audience of more than 6,600 people here not to tell anybody — “because these folks get very agitated and nervous” — but he planned to win Texas, too.

“This state, maybe more than any other state, has the possibility of transforming this country,” the Democratic presidential front-runner bellowed to cheers at the University of Houston. “On television, they say Texas is a conservative state, it’s a red state. I don’t believe it for a minute.”

For years, Texas Democrats also have tried not to believe it. But never did the political operatives toiling to turn this state blue expect that a 78-year-old, self-proclaimed democratic socialist might be their ticket.

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In El Paso, Sanders tries to allay concerns about his votes on guns, immigration

EL PASO — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders drew large and deafening crowds on a campaign swing through the important Super Tuesday state of Texas this past weekend, but one of his most important moments might have been a quiet trip to a Walmart parking lot.

There, away from reporters and cameras, Sanders visited a 30-foot golden obelisk that stands as a memorial to the 21 people gunned down last summer in the deadliest terrorist attack against Latinos in modern history.

For a candidate admired for his consistency on issues such as income equality and climate change, there are two issues on which supporters hope Sanders has evolved: gun safety and immigration reform. With a fresh wave of momentum after a solid third victory in Nevada, Sanders seemed to seek to put those concerns to rest on his weekend tour through Texas, and his visit to El Paso was widely appreciated in a city still feeling the impact of the mass shooting and Trump’s hard-line border tactics.

“I feel like the issues that are very important right now, we are living in right now,” said Rosanna Camarena, 36, a social worker who was leaning toward supporting Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren but wanted to hear what Sanders had to say about the border. She attended a rally here Saturday where he vowed to bring the nation together, in contrast, she said, to President Trump.

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How will Democratic candidates do on Super Tuesday? Look to Latinas in Nevada

LAS VEGAS — Over two decades, Maria Magaña has toiled long hours making beds, cleaning rooms, and mopping casino floors on the glitzy Las Vegas Strip. But her work hasn’t stopped there.

As a member of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, she has sat in bargaining sessions that have run up to 30 hours, and has even gone on strike. Magaña, 44, has done all of that for better health care benefits, which also cover her 12-year-old autistic son, Ramses.

"Our health care is something we don’t want any of the candidates to touch or change,” she said. That is why she opposes Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and his presidential campaign pledge to replace private health insurance with Medicare for all.

Not far from the union’s main hall in South Las Vegas, a long line of people waited at a Mexican grocery store one day this week to cast early ballots ahead of the state’s Saturday caucuses. A group of young Latinas said they all were ecstatic about supporting one particular candidate: Sanders.

I like how he wants to take down pharmaceutical monopoly companies,” Jazmin Stephens, 18, said of the self-avowed democratic socialist, as they munched on tostadas and pizza. “He wants to have health care for everyone, no matter your age, or income, or anything like that.”

Democrats wondering how presidential candidates might do on Super Tuesday as they court Latino voters across the Southwest need look no further than to Latinas like Magaña and Stephens in Nevada.

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Michael Bloomberg’s bid for the White House is fueled by his vast wealth — and he is rising in polls

Mike Bloomberg isn’t the first very rich man to use his vast wealth to try to chart an express route to the Oval Office.

But he sure seems to be the first to do it with the audacity of a corporate titan building a competition-crushing Fortune 100 company.

In less than three months, the Bloomberg campaign machine has hired more than 2,100 and opened more than 125 offices across almost every state in the country, some in places where no other Democratic candidate has a presence. The billionaire is overwhelming the airwaves with slick ads, driving the buzz on social media with a quirky meme strategy, and outspending President Trump on Facebook. He’s snagging top political talent with salaries far above the ramen-and-beer budget pay of a typical campaign — plus benefits and perks such as catered meals and top-of-the-line iPhones.

“We have never in American history seen a campaign where the campaign budget was ‘no budget,'” said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic political consultant in Miami. “It’s impossible to appreciate the reach and scale he is able to do.”

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Warren and Biden take big falls in New Hampshire

MANCHESTER, N.H. — They are giants of Democratic politics. They took turns as front-runners in the race to be their party’s standard bearer in a pivotal election year.

But as the roller coaster that is the 2020 primary careened through New Hampshire on Tuesday night, it left Senator Elizabeth Warren and former vice president Joe Biden promising to find a way to win the Democratic nomination although they haven’t come close to notching a victory in the first two contests.

Warren finished fourth and Biden fifth, both far behind the top three candidates with apparently only single-digit vote totals.

“Our best chance for this party and this nation is with a candidate that can do the work,” Warren said, as she took the stage in a drafty tennis arena after only a fraction of the night’s results had trickled in. “Our campaign is built for the long haul,” she said, “and we’re just getting started.”

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Joe Biden fights to save his presidential bid in New Hampshire

HAMPTON, N.H. — With the nation’s first primary fast approaching, Joe Biden told the few hundred people gathered at a hotel conference room in this beach town that he wasn’t there to take a dip in the ocean.

“I came for one reason,” the former vice president said. “I need your vote.”

If Biden is going down in New Hampshire, he’s going down fighting.

After a disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses and another kind of bracing dip — in New Hampshire polls — Biden’s tried to steady his campaign with fiery attacks on his Democratic rivals, feisty exchanges with reporters, and emotional appeals to voters centered on character, empathy, and his experiences with personal loss.

“How many of you have lost someone close to you?” he asked the audience in Hampton. “This is incredible what we are going through now. This president has not an ounce of empathy in his body.”

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Bernie Sanders declares victory in Iowa caucuses as Joe Biden takes a break from N.H. campaign trail

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden are the polar opposites of the Democratic presidential race in message and style.

Now, just days before the New Hampshire primary, you can add another category — momentum.

The contrast was vivid Thursday as Sanders boldly declared victory in the popular vote in the problem-plagued Iowa caucuses, while touting a huge January fund-raising haul along with a boost in staffing and advertising in several states that will hold primaries on Super Tuesday and beyond.

At the same time, Biden dropped out of sight. He spent the day meeting with his advisers and preparing for Friday night’s debate as he tried to revive his campaign after a disappointing fourth-place finish in Iowa.

On Thursday night, he got more bad news as he fell to fourth place in New Hampshire in the Boston Globe/WBZ-TV/Suffolk University poll. The survey also showed Sanders in a statistical dead heat with former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Biden and Sanders, the two former national polling front-runners, are entering a critical moment in the Democratic presidential race, as results still trickling out of Iowa showed Sanders in a virtual tie with Buttigieg in state delegates allocated by the caucuses. Senator Elizabeth Warren remains in third place.

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After a night of delays, Iowa Democratic Party chairman releases partial caucus results, along with apology

DES MOINES — Pete Buttigieg had a narrow lead over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Iowa caucuses in partial results released Tuesday afternoon by the state Democratic Party after a chaotic night that put the presidential race in a frustrating limbo while endangering the future of the first-in-the-nation contest.

With data released from 62 percent of the state’s precincts, Buttigieg had 26.9 percent of the state delegates awarded by the caucuses. The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., led Sanders, who won 25.1 percent. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren was third with 18.3 percent and former vice president Joe Biden next at 15.6 percent.

A second batch of results released late Tuesday solidified Buttigieg’s lead. With 71 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders was a close second.

The release of only partial figures about 18 hours after the full results had been expected led Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price to “apologize deeply” even as he defended the delay as necessary to make sure that “unacceptable” reporting problems didn’t mar the data.

“My number one priority has been on ensuring the accuracy and the integrity of the results and we have been working all night to be in the best position to report results,” he told reporters. “The bottom line is we hit a stumbling block on the back end of the reporting of the data but . . . we know this data is accurate.”

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When Iowa caucuses results are finally released, they could send a mixed message

AMES, Iowa — Wearing a pink light-up beanie, Samantha Goodale was firmly in the corner of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders at her caucus in an elementary school gym here on Monday night, until she left to use the bathroom.

When Goodale, 35, came back, she asked a guy named Jim to borrow a pen. As she used it, Jim pitched her on Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. And she stayed in Warren’s corner, just because it felt right.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I still think the same things I did.”

Like any good caucus — the personal and unpredictable fashion of voting that Iowans use to make their first-in-the nation presidential choices — there were last-minute switches here in this college town north of Des Moines.

There were also surprising realignments, as when half the supporters of former vice president Joe Biden joined the corner of former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, sparking cheers from the Buttigieg crowd and leaving Biden below the 15 percent threshold needed to earn state delegates in the first round.

And there was last-minute persuasion as Iowans here and at nearly 1,700 sites across the state gathered in school gymnasiums, community centers, and VFW halls. After months of political commercials on their televisions and canvassers on their doorsteps, they were ready to finally give the country its first official message about which candidate Democrats might ultimately choose to take on President Trump.

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Joe Biden flashes his strengths and flaws down homestretch in Iowa

WAUKEE, Iowa — The crowd inside the gym was fired up and so was Joe Biden, delivering a sharp closing pitch to Iowa voters that centered on the subject he has been most comfortable addressing throughout his presidential campaign: defeating President Trump.

“I can hardly wait to debate him,” the former vice president said with a playful smile on Thursday, drawing laughs from the gathering of almost 300 people. “Folks, I will not be extinguished by Donald Trump, no matter how hard he tries.”

In this presidential election, which Biden calls the very “battle for the soul of the nation,” he has cast himself as the most practical and solid choice to go up against a president who has upended America. And in the final days before the Iowa caucuses, Biden appeared to effectively double down on his message even as he displayed some of his flaws as a candidate that have made Democrats anxious.

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Iowa wrestles with how to make its caucuses more diverse

DES MOINES — Marlú Abarca was leading bilingual story time at a library here, reading an animal book aloud and strumming “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” on a ukulele before launching into an explanation in Spanish of the state’s election process — a brief lesson in democracy more for the three immigrant parents in attendance than their children.

“Who has heard about the caucuses?” she said to blank looks in the room. Only one of the parents said he vaguely knew what they were, and none were aware that Iowa was about to vote first in the heated Democratic presidential race in a matter of days.

“Well, today, we are going to practice how to vote as if we’re part of one,” she said, dividing the group of parents and children by their vote for their favorite days of the year.

The 2020 election will mark the first time that Latinos will be the nation’s largest nonwhite voting bloc, and in Iowa they are a small but growing part of the electorate. Yet, as candidates campaigned across the snow-covered state this week and campaign ads filled the airwaves, many Latinos and other people of color remain shut out of Iowa’s big political moment even as Democratic leaders are making a significant change to try to increase their participation.

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In courting Latino voters, Joe Biden grapples with Obama’s history as ‘deporter in chief’

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was stumping for votes at a Nevada high school packed with Latino labor organizers, teachers, and legislators this month when the moderator turned to a subject that weighed heavily on many in the room: the huge spike in deportations under the Obama administration.

What could people expect from Obama’s vice president on an issue that had devastated so many Latino families? asked Hector Sanchez Barba, executive director of the civic engagement organization “Mi Familia Vota.” In an exchange that surprised Sanchez and others, Biden appeared to distance himself from Obama for the first time on the issue.

“You probably know where I was on that, but I am not going to give you that,” Biden said before diving into his immigration priorities. “I was vice president.”

As he seeks the Democratic nomination, Biden has tried to straddle a fine line — invoking Obama’s legacy when closely associating with the popular president’s historic gains on health care and his rebuilding of the economy while separating himself from the controversies. Perhaps, no issue has been thornier for Biden than the Obama administration’s record for removing people illegally in the country, for which Obama picked up the nickname, “deporter in chief.”

Two main questions have followed Biden since he launched his presidential campaign: What was his position when deportations started to climb? And did he do anything to try to stop them?

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Looking for diversity in the presidential race? It’s with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other surrogates for the all-white top Democratic candidates

DENISON, Iowa – Only weeks after he ended his presidential bid, Julián Castro stood with his twin brother, Joaquin, at a Mexican restaurant here on a snowy afternoon — two Texans at ease in each other’s company, if not in Iowa’s low winter temperatures, ready to make another pitch.

Since he could not face President Trump in November, Julián Castro told the handful of voters assembled inside El Jimador’s slope-roofed, brick building, let Senator Elizabeth Warren do it.

“I ran for president because we wanted to bring about an America where everyone counts,” he said. “In order to do that, we need to make real improvements in this country, and we need a leader that sees herself as a president for everybody.”

When Castro launched his campaign last year, he strived to become the nation’s first Latino president, running as part of the most racially diverse slate ever of Democratic presidential candidates. But just like most of the other Latino and Black candidates in the crowded field, he dropped out after slamming against barriers — some personal, some deeply structural — to raising money and gaining support in the polls.

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All the president’s sheriffs: How one law enforcement group became ardent Trump supporters

WASHINGTON — President Trump was in the early throes of the Ukraine scandal that would lead to his impeachment last year when he sought to counter the controversy by surrounding himself with loyal supporters who embody law and order: sheriffs from around the country.

Assembled for a photo outside the White House on a humid September afternoon, they greeted him with boisterous cheers, some hollering “We’ve got your back, Mr. President.”

Trump then delivered a barrage against Democrats, accusing them of wanting open borders, drugs, and crime. Applauding his words and handing him a plaque in appreciation of his commitment to public safety was one of his most avid backers — a Massachusetts sheriff who within weeks would be announced as honorary chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign in the state.

“I know when I speak for these sheriffs and America’s sheriffs across the country that you’ve done more in two years than the past administrations could accomplish in 20 years,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson before the crowd broke out in chants of “U-S-A.”

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Is Bernie Sanders the Democrats’ best hope, or their worst fear?

Is a 78-year-old self-described socialist, a man who vows to upend big chunks of the economy, raise taxes in a big way, and who — impolite but necessary to say — recently had a heart attack, really the Democrats’ best shot at beating President Trump?

That’s the counterintuitive argument Senator Bernie Sanders and his boosters are making in the final days before voting begins in Iowa.

While many of his rivals darkly warn that the country would never elect the snowy-haired, proudly cantankerous populist, Sanders argues that his brand of revolutionary progressivism is right for the moment. And his backers make the case that Sanders may be uniquely positioned to win back the White House for the Democrats by beating Trump at his own game: activating a passionate base of supporters built outside the traditional party system.

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On the road for Joe Biden, John Kerry seeks to rekindle his Iowa magic

WATERLOO, Iowa – Only days after President Trump walked the country to the brink of war and back, John Kerry rolled into this small riverfront city in a motor coach emblazoned with the words “Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”

The campaign bus and slogan belong to Kerry’s longtime Washington colleague and friend, former vice president Joe Biden, who’s seeking the same prize Kerry secured in frigid Iowa 16 winters ago — a caucus win to propel him to the Democratic presidential nomination.

But Biden wasn’t on board.

Kerry was the headliner of a band of lesser-known politicians barnstorming in his stead before the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. It was an unusual ride for a former Secretary of State who came within some 120,000 votes in Ohio of winning the presidency: campaigning for — but not with — a candidate.

Seated in a cramped space in the back of the motor coach that was decked out with a horseshoe sectional and a miniature flat screen, Kerry said he was motivated to launch his own second act in Iowa as a campaign surrogate because Trump’s actions have shattered world diplomacy and increased the threat of nuclear proliferation.

"It is just unforgivable to sit on the sidelines,” he said.

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Once deported, the Rubios are the first sisters to serve in the California Legislature

SACRAMENTO — It was open house at Heron Elementary School, and inside a bustling auditorium, fifth-graders created a living wax museum of “Famous Americans,” decked out as pop icons, sports stars and legends from their history books.

Along with a miniature Barack Obama who tried not to fidget as he stood behind a makeshift presidential lectern, there was an Abraham Lincoln in a top hat (and checkered Vans), a bushy Albert Einstein and at least two sharpshooting Annie Oakleys.

Not far from a robed Sandra Day O’Connor stood an 11-year-old girl with long, brown hair, black slacks and a blazer. Like the others, she stood on a chair and remained motionless until you pressed a paper printout of a red button at her feet. Then she spoke:

“Hi, I am Blanca Rubio. The reason I am a famous American is because I am an assemblywoman, but not only that, it’s also because just recently my sister, Susan Rubio, got elected into the state Senate. Now we are the first sisters to ever be elected into the state Capitol.”

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Nancy Pelosi had tried to avoid impeachment. Now it will be a defining moment for her

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat alone in the eighth row of seats on the House floor late Wednesday morning, flipping through notes as she prepared to open debate on whether to impeach a president for the third time in American history.

It was a moment of calm in a Washington maelstrom. Pelosi seemed almost unaware of Republican Representative Debbie Lesko of Arizona castigating Democrats for “tearing this country apart” on the other side of the chamber.

Pelosi herself used to warn that impeachment was too divisive to be worth it. Now, she was leading the pursuit, flexing her tactical muscles to shepherd fellow Democrats through the perilous political territory that will forge her own legacy.

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