2020 Elections

Politico reports: Make the Road Action, an immigrant rights group, is endorsing Bernie Sanders for president, lending the Vermont senator significant political muscle in the early caucus state of Nevada and a delegate-heavy group of northeastern states. The 10-year-old organization, which mobilizes immigrants and minority communities for political action in Connecticut, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, has not …

CyberScoop reports: The Chief Information Security Officer for Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s campaign, Mick Baccio, has resigned. Baccio, who has been with the Buttigieg campaign since last August, told CyberScoop he left because he no longer agreed with the way senior leadership in the campaign was envisioning campaign cybersecurity. “[I left due to] fundamental philosophical differences with the campaign …

The Insider reports: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wasn’t on stage at the seventh Democratic presidential debate in Iowa on Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t make a splash. Bloomberg’s campaign, which kicked off in November, was quite active on Twitter. While the six candidates on stage in Iowa duked it out over issues like healthcare, foreign policy, …

CBS News reports: Six Democratic presidential candidates will be making their case on Tuesday night from Des Moines, where the last debate before the Iowa caucuses — the first nominating contest of 2020 — will kick off at 9 p.m. ET on CNN. The stage is set for a clash between two of the top contenders and progressive allies, Senators …

The Sacramento Bee reports: California Sen. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign is over, but she could still find herself in the White House next year. In his first California interview, former Vice President Joe Biden said he would consider Harris “for anything” she wants, including vice president. “She’s qualified to be president, and I’d consider her for anything that she would …

The Hill reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a video slamming former Vice President Joe Biden just hours before the two are set to meet at Tuesday night’s 2020 primary debate in Iowa. The video features Sanders speechwriter David Sirota highlighting Sanders’s attacks on Biden for voting for the Iraq War while he was in the Senate, an attack line …

The Associated Press reports: Sen. Cory Booker says he is not making any immediate endorsement for president now that he has dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination and will focus on his Senate reelection. Booker told “CBS This Morning” on Tuesday, a day after, that he eventually might endorse someone in before the party’s nominating convention this …

Politico reports: Elizabeth Warren stood by news reports that Bernie Sanders told her a little over a year ago that he thought Democrats would lose in 2020 if they nominated a woman to challenge Donald Trump — an account Sanders denied earlier in the day. In an extraordinary statement issued the night before the debate before the Iowa caucuses, Warren …

Reuters reports: Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg won his first endorsement from a member of Congress on Monday with the backing of fellow New Yorker U.S. Representative Max Rose. Rose is a veteran who was elected in 2018 to represent parts of NYC including Staten Island, typically a Republican stronghold . Rose said Bloomberg took over as mayor of New …

The Hill reports: A new poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden alone at the top in Iowa, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), former South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) bunched together and vying for second place. The latest Monmouth University survey of Iowa finds Biden at 24 percent, followed by Sanders at 18, Buttigieg …

Politico reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders is not ruling out releasing a shortlist of his potential Supreme Court nominees, seemingly following in the precedent-breaking footsteps of President Donald Trump during his 2016 run. Sanders agreed last month in a lengthy interview with The New York Times editorial board that releasing a list of potential nominees even before securing the Democratic nomination …

Insider New Jersey reports: Cory Booker this morning formally opted out of the 2020 presidential race. The junior senator from New Jersey and former mayor of Newark ran up against the money factor and had to take a knee prior to what he hoped would be a competitive showing in early primary states despite what the polls showed. “Nearly one …

PolitiFact reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders argues that former Vice President Joe Biden sided with a Republican effort to cut Social Security. “In 2018, Biden lauded Paul Ryan for proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare,” wrote the Sanders campaign in a Jan. 7 newsletter. The night before on CNN, Sanders had attacked Biden’s record on Social Security and Medicare. The …

Politico reports: Freshman Rep. Colin Allred endorsed Joe Biden on Monday, giving the former vice president his tenth endorsement from a black member of Congress and his fifth from Texas’ congressional delegation. “I do think he has the best chance to win in November. I also think he’s the right person for the time,” Allred, a Democrat, told POLITICO in …

The New York Times reports: A nearly yearlong run of good will between two of the leading progressives in the 2020 presidential race, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders, appears to be evaporating in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. Ms. Warren said on Sunday she was “disappointed” that Mr. Sanders’s campaign had been using a script for volunteers …

Newsweek reports: Protesters disrupted a Pete Buttigieg campaign event on Sunday night as they demonstrated against the former South Bend mayor’s record on housing. The activists chanted “black lives matter” and “anti-poor, anti-black” after the Democratic primary candidate took the stage in Des Moines, Iowa to deliver a speech to supporters. Buttigieg told the protesters he wanted to talk with …

The Hill reports: Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg picked up an endorsement from long-time Iowa Rep. Dave Loebsack (D) on Sunday, less than a month ahead of the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses. The seven-term congressman touted Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., as a Washington outsider who can help unite the nation. “Pete offers a new kind of leadership …

Reuters reports: Michael Bloomberg told Reuters he is ready to spend much of his vast fortune to oust Republican President Donald Trump from the White House in 2020, rejecting criticism from rivals for the Democratic nomination that the billionaire is trying to buy the U.S. election. “Number one priority is to get rid of Donald Trump. I’m spending all my …

From an op-ed in South Carolina’s The State: In choosing between the two Democratic Party candidates atop the polls, African American voters have a consequential decision to make: Will our community side with former Vice President Joe Biden, who has repeatedly betrayed black voters to side with Republican lawmakers and undermine our progress? Or will we stand with Vermont Sen. …

Politico reports: The non-aggression pact between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is seriously fraying. Sanders’ campaign has begun stealthily attacking Warren as a candidate of the upper crust who could not expand the Democratic base in a general election, according to talking points his campaign is using to persuade voters obtained by POLITICO. The script instructs Sanders volunteers to tell …