VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign said Sunday that it raised more than $46.5 million in February, a show of financial strength after the Vermont senator finished a distant second behind Joe Biden in South Carolina’s primary.
Fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren announced a short time later collecting a respectable $29 million last month, as she copes with a weaker South Carolina showing.
Sanders’ team said it was making television ad buys in nine more states: Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri and Washington, which vote on March 10, and Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio, which vote a week later. The campaign said it is “currently on the air in 12 out of the 14 states” that are voting on Super Tuesday, in two days.
Well I certainly wouldn't bet on any sort of Bernie collapse following a loss to Joe Biden in a state he was expected to lose (albeit by a much smaller margin). Especially since Bernie went the distance in 2016, while always coming from behind. If he comes out of Super Tuesday with the delegate lead, there is little reason to believe he won't go into the convention as the delegate leader. Why would any of his supporters peel off from the person who is still favored to win at least a plurality of the delegates.
The bigger question is whether or not the one state victory for Biden will be enough to consolidate the support of that moderate lane? Obviously he has to compete with Michael Bloomberg as well as Buttigieg and Klobuchar. While I suspect at least Klobuchar will drop out after Super Tuesday (probably just been hanging around to compete in Minnesota), but will Buttigieg and/or Bloomberg? Bloomberg has field offices across the nation and has already bought ads in states post Super Tuesday. Buttigieg is still raising considerable money and has a decent operation in place. But he probably has to do fairly well "somewhere" on Tuesday, however, or he will likely pack it in.
If I had to guess I would say that we will have no less than four candidates still kicking after Super Tuesday (Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg, and Warren). Buttigieg could go either way. Then we are starting to look at the very real possibility of a brokered convention and a just as real possibility that certain candidates will be campaigning specifically to keep Sanders from getting a majority in order to force the political showdown that could tear the Party apart.
