Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Sanders fights to hold onto New Hampshire
Warren, others slice into hopeful’s support
FRANKLIN, N.H. — Bernie Sanders has consistently remained among the front-runners in the Democratic primary with polling that has stayed strong despite his heart attack in Nevada last month and the rise of rivals Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg.
But perhaps no state will test the Vermont senator’s durability more than New Hampshire, where he trounced Hillary Clinton by 22 points in 2016 and now may find himself a victim of that success.
Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, is trying to erode Sanders’ support among ardent progressives, while former Vice President Joe Biden continues to woo the Democratic establishment, declaring during a recent stop in the state capital, Concord: “I plan on winning New Hampshire.”
Yet another New Englander, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, could raise the state’s stakes since he’s already relatively well known here, despite just joining the 2020 race.
And, with none of those candidates from nearby states running away with New Hampshire, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has moved among the front-runners — similar to his rise in Iowa.
“I like what Bernie stands for,” said Jessica Pine, 42, who attended a Sanders event Saturday in Franklin and is considering voting for him, Warren or Biden. “I’m not sure about the electability for him.”
Polls conducted in late October and early November show Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg all bunched together for the New Hampshire lead.
Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in August that he expected the senator to win New Hampshire — which will hold its primary Feb. 11, eight days after Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses — while insisting that falling short wouldn’t spell catastrophe.
Still, in September, Sanders ousted his New Hampshire state director, and a top adviser to the campaign in the state also left.
Since then, the Sanders campaign has shown more of a New Hampshire presence and announced this month that it had 90 staffers here. Warren has more than 55 staffers statewide, according to a campaign aide.
Sarah Gellert, a 40-year-old teacher, said she voted for Sanders during the 2016 Democratic primary but now is undecided between him and Warren.
“I feel for both candidates very deeply and I would love — of course in this la la land world — I’d love to see them on the same ticket,” Gellert said.
In other campaign news:
■ Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack endorsed Biden for president and said the former vice president’s personal losses give him “the capacity to comfort” and “the need to heal” a divided nation.
Vilsack, who served eight years in the Obama administration with Biden as secretary of agriculture, said at a rally in Des Moines that Biden could step into the office with an immediate command of domestic and global issues at a time when events demand “you can’t be a rookie in this business. You’ve got to be a pro.”
■ California Sen. Kamala Harris made an appeal to black women in South Carolina, a contingency whose support she sees as crucial to the viability of her candidacy for the White House.
“When we talk about black girl magic, we know that it is something special,” she told a crowd of about 300 at Benedict College, a historically black institution in downtown Columbia. “But that magic is born out of hard work. … It didn’t just magically appear. … We worked hard for that.”
Just before her appearance, Harris signed her papers to be a candidate in South Carolina’s presidential primary.