Saturday, February 8, 2020
“Billionaires by the dozen are contributing to Pete Buttigieg,” Sanders told supporters at a canvassing launch in Dover, N.H. “Now, I like Pete. He’s a smart guy and he’s a nice guy. But if you are serious about political change in America, that change is not going to be coming from somebody who gets a lot of money from the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry.”
Sanders’ newfound focus on Buttigieg follows a surprisingly strong finish in Iowa by the former mayor of South Bend, Ind. In recent days, Buttigieg has been approaching Sanders in some polls of New Hampshire.
As the senator traveled the Granite State on Saturday, he alluded to the former mayor at nearly every campaign stop, contrasting Buttigieg’s fundraising practices with his own.
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Moderator George Stephanopoulos of ABC News quickly goaded former vice president Joe Biden into repeating his recent criticisms of Sanders and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg, the other leader in Iowa. “Bernie’s labeled himself — not me — a democratic socialist. I think that’s the label [President Donald] Trump is going to lay on everyone running if Bernie’s the nominee,” the vice president said, adding that Buttigieg was merely the “mayor of a small city.”
Asked why Democrats should not fear such attacks from the president, Sanders said, “Because Donald Trump lies all the time.”
Stephanopoulos wasn’t about to let it go. “Let me just ask: Is anyone else on the stage concerned about having a democratic socialist at the top of the democratic ticket?” he asked.
Only Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) raised her hand.
“I’m not,” Sanders reported.
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Thursday, February 6, 2020
Three days after the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declared Thursday that he had won a “very strong victory” in the first presidential contest.
Speaking at a press conference in Manchester, N.H., Sanders played down the importance of the final delegate allocation and focused instead on the number of votes cast at the start of the caucusing process. By that metric, according to incomplete results available Thursday, he led former mayor Pete Buttigieg by 5,954 votes, or 24.7 percent to 21.3 percent.
“When 6,000 more people come out for you in an election than your nearest opponent, we here in northern New England call that a victory,” Sanders said.
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Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Pete Buttigieg are in a close race for the lead in the Iowa caucuses, according to partial results released Tuesday evening by the Iowa Democratic Party.
Sanders leads the former South Bend, Ind., mayor in raw votes, though Buttigieg maintains a slight lead in state delegate equivalents, 26.9 percent to Sanders' 25.1 percent. That's with 62 percent of precincts reporting.
Candidate delegates are calculated from a multistep caucusing process in which voters may change their preference after an initial round of voting.
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The outcome of the Iowa caucuses remained far from certain late Monday as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took the stage in Des Moines, but that didn’t stop him from declaring a victory of sorts.
“Let me begin by stating that I imagine — I have a strong feeling — that at some point the results will be announced,” he said to cheers from supporters. “And when those results are announced, I have a good feeling we’re going to be doing very, very well here in Iowa.”
Scattered reports from precincts across the Hawkeye State seemed to confirm that suspicion. But citing “inconsistencies” in data reported by caucus chairs, Iowa Democratic Party officials refused to release results.
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Monday, February 3, 2020
"We even have people up on the snowbank!" Sanders exclaimed, gesturing toward a small group of sign-wielding hipsters assembled atop a dirty pile of snow. "Whoa!"
On his final day in Iowa before Monday's Democratic presidential caucuses, Sanders made his way from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines, dropping by field offices to thank his loyal foot soldiers and encourage them to keep at it.
"The message is that we cannot simply complain about the status quo," he told the crowd in Cedar Rapids. It was not the time, he said, to complain about President Donald Trump or low wages or the high cost of prescription drugs. "Now is the time to end the complaining," he said. "Now is the time for action. Action is tomorrow night."
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Sunday, February 2, 2020
Four years later, Sanders’ closing argument hasn’t changed a lick: “On Monday night in Iowa … if there is a low voter turnout, let me be very frank, we’re gonna lose. But if there is a high voter turnout, we’re gonna win.”
That latest assessment came Saturday night as Sanders addressed some 3,000 supporters at a Cedar Rapids arena, flanked by members of the band Vampire Weekend. According to his campaign, it was the largest rally any Democrat has held in Iowa this election season.
The candidate, however, had another record in mind. “Tonight, I am here to ask you to make certain that, on Monday night, we have the highest voter turnout for an Iowa caucus in the history of this state,” he said.
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Saturday, February 1, 2020
Thousands of Sanders supporters still gathered in the city of Clive to hear indie crooner Justin Vernon — the frontman of Bon Iver — and a cast of campaign surrogates make the case for the senator from Vermont. Sanders himself phoned in to the event, his disembodied voice urging audience members to help "create the highest voter turnout in the history of the Iowa caucuses."
"On Monday night, the entire country and, in fact, the entire world will be looking at the great state of Iowa," Sanders said. "And my humble request of you is to do everything that you can to make sure that our friends and our neighbors come out to vote."
Though Sanders framed his campaign as one of unity, two key allies who spoke at the event — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and filmmaker Michael Moore — derided his political foes, past and present.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2020
A slew of surveys released in recent days suggest that Sanders has caught up with former vice president Joe Biden in Iowa, which is poised to hold its caucuses next Monday, and has opened up a lead in New Hampshire, which votes the following week.
"Things are looking beautiful," said Ben Cohen, a national cochair of Sanders' presidential campaign. He and fellow Ben & Jerry's cofounder Jerry Greenfield have been spending the week crisscrossing Iowa to campaign for Sanders. "The people we've been talking to are incredibly enthusiastic," Cohen said.
Even as Sanders focuses on the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, his campaign has increased its investment in the 14 states that vote on March 3. On that day, better known as Super Tuesday, 1,344 delegates will be awarded — including 415 in California and 228 in Texas — compared with the 41 delegates out of Iowa.
A new poll released Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times shows Sanders leading the pack in California with 26 percent of the vote, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) with 20 percent and Biden with 15 percent. On the same day, the Sanders campaign announced that it was launching a $2.5 million ad campaign in California and Texas — a relatively small buy in such massive states but a sign of Sanders' ability to bankroll a long fight for delegates.
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Monday, January 27, 2020
The council voted 10-2 to refer the item to a council subcommittee for further discussion. City Council President Kurt Wright (R-Ward 4) and Councilor Ali Dieng (D/P-Ward 7) voted no.
City Councilor Adam Roof (I-Ward 8), who championed the ballot item, said it became clear "there was a growing level of misunderstanding and confusion" about noncitizen voting. Some people assumed the ballot item would afford voting rights to undocumented residents, Roof said. Instead, it would have allowed those who come to the country legally — but are not citizens — to vote in municipal elections.
"My personal intention with this motion is to put the initiative in a better position to pass," he said, "and given how the public discussion has developed as of late, I don't believe that this time is this coming March."
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