Their candidates have dropped out. Now what?
In love and politics, some breakups are more painful than others.
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley isn’t ready to commit to someone else.
“I thought he ran a terrific campaign and I was so proud to be a part of it,” Whaley said of fellow Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a close friend who she endorsed early in the race. Buttigieg ended his presidential campaign Sunday, kicking off a domino effect of candidates quitting the race that quickly firmed up the field.
But don’t expect another endorsement from her anytime soon. Less than two weeks before Ohio’s presidential primary, Whaley said she remains undecided.
“I don’t feel strongly about the last two candidates who are in,” she said.
Twenty-four hours after Tina Skeldon Wozniak’s preferred Democratic candidate, Mike Bloomberg, ended his presidential bid, she had already moved on. To Joe Biden.
“I felt like our party needed to start stating what they believe in and get a smaller number of people to choose from,” said Wozniak, Lucas
County Board of Commissioners president, who believes the former New York City mayor’s candidacy helped mold the Democratic field into a two-person race between Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“At the end of the day, I think we’re at a great point, and Biden is the right answer for all of us,” she said.
Over the past year, dozens of prominent Democrats across Ohio have thrown their support and influence behind candidates whose presidential bids failed to go the distance. Before Ohio’s March 17 primary, they will have to decide whether to back Biden or Sanders, or wait until later to fall in line behind the eventual nominee.
For some, picking one of the remaining two candidates — a moderate Democrat promising a return to civility and a fiery democratic socialist hoping to lead a revolution — is an easy choice.
Others aren’t feeling the spark.
“It hasn’t been 24 hours so I have not picked anyone yet (and may not regarding endorsement),” Franklin County Auditor Michael Stinziano, an early Bloomberg endorser, said in an email.
The endorsers The Blade reached said they were either undecided, intentionally uncommitted, or backing Biden.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who ended her campaign Thursday morning after failing to place higher than third in any of the contests so far, is also taking time to figure it out. She hasn’t yet signaled to her supporters who she’s going to back, although many assume it will be her ideological counterpart, Sanders.
“I want to take some time to think a little more,” she said regarding a future endorsement.
Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar took the opposite approach, endorsing Biden immediately after exiting the race to solidify support behind their onetime rival, who they now argue is the best candidate to unite the party and beat Trump.
Marianne Williamson, the spiritual author, is the only former candidate to endorse Sanders.
Former Buttigieg supporter David Berger, the mayor of Lima, said that he’s now backing Joe Biden for similar reasons, believing “he can provide the kind of leadership that renews our faith in ourselves.”
As a Democratic mayor in red Allen County, Berger said his role entails building bipartisan coalitions, and he believes Biden is capable of doing the same.
“I don’t think Trump’s base is going to move at all,” but Republicans who feel alienated or who have become independents might gravitate toward Biden, he said.
“There will be a broad coalition that will form. It won’t just be Democrats voting for Biden.”
In Ohio, where early voting begins 28 days before elections, Democrats have had two weeks to cast ballots for candidates whose campaigns have since fizzled. Even those who wait until election day will still see 11 Democrats on their ballots.
And unlike in Michigan, where nearly 16,000 voters have asked to spoil their ballots, Ohio doesn’t offer do-overs for the 48,000 voters who have already submitted Democratic ballots either by mail or in-person.
Sheena Barnes, a Toledo School Board member, posted on Twitter a photo of her “I Voted” sticker and said Warren’s campaign gave her hope the nation is moving toward electing a female president.
Barnes was the first elected official in Toledo to endorse the liberal senator, persuaded by her education policies and support for LGBTQ inclusivity. Now she doesn’t know who should get the nomination.
“This is a tough one for me,” she said. “I’m going to have to play it by ear.”
Toledo City Councilman Nick Komives, who had initially backed Buttigieg, was getting ready to endorse Warren in a Facebook post just as she announced the end of her campaign.
“I’m having a hard time deciding out of the two who are left,” he said. “Ultimately, I will support whoever the Democratic Party’s candidate is with full force and vigor. But as of right now, I’m going to wait and see what happens within the party.”
Whaley, who before supporting Buttigieg launched a committee to draft Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown for the presidency, said Buttigieg texted her last Sunday to tell her it was over.
As the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., Buttigieg understands the concerns of mid-sized cities, and represented something “special and different,” she said.
“He said he has tales to tell,” Whaley said. “So I can’t wait to get dinner.”