Editor’s note: This is the first of VTDigger’s weekly Friday updates on the Sanders campaign for the Democratic nomination. Sign up here by becoming a new subscriber or changing your settings if you already get a Digger newsletter.
PROG TEAM UP
Sanders and Warren defended Medicare for all from a barrage of challenges from CNN moderators and fellow Democrats during Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debate in Detroit.
- Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan pressed Sanders, saying the Vermont senator could not possibly know if Medicare for all would offer more comprehensive coverage than some health care plans that have been negotiated by labor unions.
- Sanders responded: “I do know it, I wrote the damn bill,” he said (the campaign has already put the quote on stickers).
- Darren Allen, a spokesperson for VT-NEA, the largest union in Vermont, dismissed Rep. Ryan’s assertion.
- “I don’t know of a single person in the union movement that believes the current system is working,” Allen said. “If it was a basic right, then it would leave more time to negotiate other things.”
INSIDE NH GROUND GAME
With 20-plus candidates in the race, Bernie Sanders’ 2019 New Hampshire strategy is different this time around — the Vermont Senator is focusing on winning delegates — not states. In 2016, Sanders drew huge crowds and winning the Granite Mountain State was critical to his success as a primary candidate. This election season, with so many Dems picking up on Sanders’ progressive messaging, he’s having a tougher time rallying crowds.
- The focus on delegates is straight out of the Democratic primary playbook of David Plouffe, who is credited with focusing former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign on maximizing the total number of pledged delegates instead of focusing solely on primary states.
- “Any time you have more than a three-way race, it becomes a delegate race,” says NH state director Joe Caiazzo. “There’s a lot of math going on.”
FORMER STAFFER ALLEGES UNION INACTION
A former staffer for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, who has already accused the campaign of unfair labor practices, now has alleged that the union representing campaign workers refused to process grievances against the campaign.
- This is the latest action involving accusations against the Sanders campaign.
- A week ago, the unidentified former campaign worker filed separate documents alleging the Vermont senator’s Iowa campaign had fired three people in retaliation for attempting to exercise their rights under the collective bargaining agreement.
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AROUND THE WEB
- The New York Times narrowly declared Elizabeth Warren the winner of the first night of the Democratic debates, with Bernie Sanders a close second.
- In the lead up to the debate, Sanders met with Cardi B, the 26-year old rapper from the Bronx, in a nail salon in Detroit to film a campaign video. Meanwhile the campaign was sending out email blasts to supporters asking for donations.
- On Wednesday, the campaign reported it had received $1.1 million in contributions and more than 70,000 first time donors since Tuesday.
- CNN published a Bernie Sanders written op-ed where he outlined the importance of affordable housing and rent control.
- Sidney Ember and Thomas Kaplan wrote about the main differences between Sanders and Warren.
- Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., who was the first member of Congress to endorse Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, announced this week that he will back Warren in 2020, according to the Daily Beast.
- Sanders has a large lead over the other Democratic presidential candidates in the number of individual donors they have each accumulated so far, The New York Times reports.
THE REST OF THE FIELD
Hundreds of bot-like social-media accounts promoted misinformation during the Democratic presidential debates.
Politico Magazine reports Joe Biden’s son and brother have a track record of making, or seeking, deals that cash in on his name.
Tulsi Gabbard attacks Kamala Harris on record as a prosecutor.
So far, only eight candidates have qualified for the next set of debates to be held the second week of September.
THIS WEEK’S POLLS
Pre-debate:
1. Biden 33%
2. Sanders 18%
3. Warren 13%
4. Harris 12%
5. Buttigieg 5%
Post-debate:
1. Biden 32%
2. Sanders 18%
3. Warren 15%
4. Harris 10%
5. Buttigieg 6%
A LOOK AHEAD
Sanders will be in Nevada over the weekend, with a public forum on Saturday and a Sunday Town Hall on the state’s economy and the opening of his field office in Las Vegas. The Nevada Democratic caucuses take place on Saturday, February 22, 2020.
TREAT OF THE WEEK
Ben Cohen, Sanders’ national campaign chair and co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s, announced a “limited edition” pint of ice-cream called “Bernie’s Back.”
“Jerry + I are cranking up the old ice cream machine to show our support,” Cohen tweeted Friday morning.
Not your Phish Food or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, “Bernie’s Back” is a combo of hot cinnamon ice-cream with a chocolate disc on top and a “very stiff” butter toffee “backbone” going down the middle.
The campaign says the cinnamon ice-cream represents Sanders’ “political revolution,” that the chocolate disc is “all the wealth that has risen to the top 1%” and the butter toffee is an edible version of “Bernie’s steadfast determination to un-rig our economy.”
