Bloomberg steps up bid for votes in state

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is pouring resources into Arkansas ahead of next week’s Democratic presidential primary, betting that he can scoop up delegates in the Natural State on Super Tuesday.

Two of his competitors, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, have smaller teams of staffers in the field.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meanwhile, is benefiting from the campaign infrastructure he began building during his 2016 campaign.

Bloomberg, who has already visited Arkansas twice since declaring his candidacy, is scheduled to make a third appearance Thursday in Northwest Arkansas.

Klobuchar drew a big crowd at the Maumelle Event Center over the weekend.

One week out, the race appears highly competitive, according to Michael John Gray, the neutral Democratic Party of Arkansas chairman.

“[We] all would’ve assumed, 60 to 90 days ago, that this state would default to [former Vice President Joe] Biden,” Gray said Monday.

Instead, the state and its delegates are up for grabs, he said.

Biden, who was the front-runner for much of the race, failed to build a strong Arkansas campaign structure, Gray said.

While there are some great Arkansans supporting the former vice president, “as a whole, the Biden campaign structure seems to be the least organized in the state,” Gray said.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, has been methodical, Gray said.

“Before he even filed, I started fielding questions at

the party from his staff about delegates, about process. They seem to have been on top of this from Day One. They seem to have the most organized infrastructure so to speak,” he said. “However, you can’t discount the Sanders volunteer infrastructure that’s been here for a number of years now.”

One week out, Warren, Klobuchar and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg are also mobilizing supporters, Gray said.

When it comes to the expectation game, Bloomberg’s team is setting the bar high.

“We feel confident we’ll win and take a majority … of the delegates,” said Bloomberg senior adviser Amanda Crumley.

The New Yorker, who is self-financing his campaign, has opened field offices in Little Rock, Fayetteville and West Memphis, his state director, Evan Tanner, said Monday.

An army of 20 staffers is already working, he added.

Tanner, who served as Arkansas state director for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, said Bloomberg’s campaign infrastructure surpasses anything that existed four years ago.

“We have never seen a presidential primary put in this many resources in the past 20 years. This is kind of unprecedented,” he said.

Satellite offices have also been established in the Batesville, Pine Bluff and El Dorado areas, Bloomberg officials said Monday.

“Our footprint is the entire state,” Arkansas organizing director Clinton Richardson said.

Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. is backing Bloomberg, as are mayors of Pine Bluff, Camden, El Dorado, West Memphis, Huttig, Stephens and Strong. Monday, former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt endorsed him as well.

With the right kind of candidate, Democrats can win in Arkansas, Tanner said.

“Voters will flip and switch over, but they want common-sense, practical solutions to problems that are facing them and here in Arkansas, that’s health care, that’s gun violence, that’s climate problems and it’s certainly Donald Trump,” he said.

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, who has endorsed Biden, predicted Arkansas Democrats will back the former vice president.

“I think that people like Joe Biden’s experience. They know that Joe Biden is an adult, that he’s been around the block more than a few times,” he said. “He does have some gravitas that I think people are looking for. So my guess is that in Arkansas in the Democratic primary, Biden wins.”

State Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, said he also foresees a Biden victory.

“I think Vice President Biden has been vetted for this job. I think him being in there for eight years as VP is giving him what he needs — the commitment, the confidence,” he said. “I think at this time, he is what we need to get America back on track.”

After losing the state in 2016, Sanders supporters say they’re making headway in Arkansas.

A legion of grassroots activists are making it happen, they say.

“None of us can pull, you know, $400 million out of our pockets to run TV ads nonstop, so we’re just doing what we can to get the candidate elected that we believe in,” said Ian Bitts, a “Bernie Victory Captain” from Little Rock.

He recruited Arkansans to go door-to-door for Sanders in central Arkansas. Five Sanders supporters volunteered the first time he did it. Fifteen showed up the second. He’s hoping for even more this weekend.

Campaign spokesman Kolby Lee said Sanders has a state field director in Arkansas. The campaign also has a “multigenerational, multiracial” group of more than 1,000 volunteers in Arkansas, he said.

“It’s the secret behind our success,” he said.

Warren has a mix of volunteers as well as campaign staffers in the field, her campaign said.

“Ours was the first presidential campaign with field staff on the ground in Arkansas. We now have 7 staff working across the state, organizing in every congressional district,” Warren campaign spokeswoman Alexis Krieg wrote in an email.

Buttigieg has more than 200 active volunteers statewide, campaign spokeswoman Tess Whittlesey said in an email.

Klobuchar has staffers working in the state, including “many native Arkansans,” campaign spokeswoman Kelsi Browning said in an email. The number of staffers wasn’t disclosed.

The Biden campaign “is on the ground” in Arkansas, spokeswoman Kelly Scully said in an email. She did not address how many staffers the campaign has deployed to the state.

While businessman Tom Steyer doesn’t have staff in Arkansas, he is nonetheless running advertising in the state, his senior strategist, Jeff Berman, said in an interview Monday.

Steyer has worked hard in South Carolina, laying the groundwork for success there, Berman said.

That state holds its primary Saturday.

“We are looking at South Carolina to create momentum going into Super Tuesday around the country, including in Arkansas,” he said.

Steyer is polling well in the Palmetto State, he noted.

“We have the largest staff in the state. The entire campaign has gone all-out in South Carolina and so we expect to do well when the voters vote,” he added.