Democrats focus on Super Tuesday

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Bernie Sanders will swing through North Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts in the coming days. Elizabeth Warren will make stops in Texas and Arkansas. Amy Klobuchar will be in Tennessee and Virginia.

The South Carolina primary is just two days away, but the race is quickly going national as candidates pivot to the 14 states that vote on Tuesday.

The move is in part a recognition of Joe Biden’s strength in South Carolina, with most of the focus on the margin of his victory and who might come in second place. But it’s also an effort to tap into the hundreds of delegates at stake in the “Super Tuesday” contests. About a third of the delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination will be on the table.

The tight turnaround between Saturday’s primary in South Carolina and the contests that follow on Tuesday is creating a hectic stretch for campaigns.

“What happens in South Carolina does matter, mostly because of what the coverage is going to be over the three days leading up to Super Tuesday. If someone seems out of the running, they’re going to lose value,” said Achim Bergmann, a Democratic strategist whose firm does work in a number of Super Tuesday states. “It’s a tough deal for the candidates who are perceived to be at the lower rungs at the moment to figure out where can they get some juice.”

New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg has sought to bypass the traditional early voting states including South Carolina to focus exclusively on the Super Tuesday states. But even he had to balance the competing demands as he qualified for Tuesday’s debate in Charleston. He went back to New York after the debate only to return to South Carolina the next day to appear at a CNN town hall.

Bloomberg will be in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina — all Super Tuesday states — over the next several days.

Indeed, strategists in key Super Tuesday states say voters there are watching to see what happens in South Carolina before they make up their minds.

Texas offers the secondbiggest delegate pot on Super Tuesday, with 228 pledged delegates, and Buttigieg and Biden are expected to campaign there after South Carolina votes. But other candidates, including Sanders, Warren and Bloomberg, have all made stops there this week.

Biden wasn’t doing much outside South Carolina, where his flagging campaign is seeking its first win of the primary season. Likewise, billionaire Tom Steyer has essentially hunkered down in the state, while Bloomberg, who participated in the debate, has all but ignored the early four contests and instead will campaign across a handful of Southern states that vote next week.

Buttigieg was not alone in trying to stir fundraising events into the mix. Klobuchar held a fundraiser in Charleston on Monday and was to duck out Thursday for one in North Carolina and another Friday in Tennessee, along with campaign events in both states over the two-day stretch.

And Sanders had plans to dash up to North Carolina, a conveniently situated March 3 primary state, on Wednesday and again Thursday, when he also plans to cross into Virginia. While other candidates are making their final pitches in South Carolina, Sanders was also scheduled to make two campaign stops in Massachusetts, home turf for Warren and a critical Super Tuesday state.