HOUSTON — Super Tuesday will irrevocably reshape the 2020 Democratic presidential field and, depending on the results, will have the same effect on the U.S. political landscape more broadly.
The multistate contest this week will test how effectively the now whittled-down pack of five candidates have marshaled their staff and resources to compete on the ground and airwaves simultaneously in 14 states and one U.S. territory so they can secure their share of the 1,357 delegates on offer. It will also challenge general Democratic opposition to money in politics in a novel form: Michael Bloomberg.
Compared with other Democratic White House hopefuls who’ve been blazing their respective campaign trails for a year, Bloomberg, 78, announced his self-funded bid in late November, decided to skip the first four early-voting contests and has largely avoided settings and situations where he’ll face questions from voters and the press.
Instead, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, basically an untested contender, pumped $220 million of his own money into his operation during January alone, bringing his total outlay up to $409 million since last fall. He’s additionally committed to dole out an excess of $500 million on television, radio, print, and online advertising through Super Tuesday, when he’ll appear on a ballot for the first time this cycle. To put that into context, Bernie Sanders, who leads the rest of the field by miles in terms of fundraising, hauling in $167 million to date, has invested less than one-tenth of that. He’s spent $48 million on messaging since he launched his second presidential campaign last February.
Democratic railing against money being funneled into politics through special interest groups isn’t new since the Supreme Court did away with restrictions on corporation, union, and individual political advertising in its 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission decision. But the 2020 primary has broken new ground regarding opposition to the ultrawealthy. Sanders, for example, has been repeatedly grilled on his assertion that “billionaires should not exist,” a statement the 78-year-old independent Vermont senator made when he unveiled his tax reform platform last September.
Yet Bloomberg, with his deep pockets, is polling above the 15% threshold required to snag delegates in Super Tuesday states, such as delegate-laden Texas with an average of 16.7%, North Carolina with 16%, and Virginia with 19.5%, according to RealClearPolitics data. Select public opinion surveys in more conservative states such as Oklahoma, in which only Bloomberg has the cash reserves to pour money, have the information services entrepreneur and philanthropist in front as well.
That prospect angers some Democrats. For Jerry Wald, however, an Elizabeth Warren supporter the Washington Examiner met this week in Houston, “it’s more about fear,” motivating him “even more” to help the Massachusetts senator, 70, stay in the race.
“I know that money is not healthy for democracy. That has always been a theme throughout our country’s history, that basically those who have wealth have power,” the retired civil servant, 70, said. “Bloomberg is all about money and, frankly, we don’t need another billionaire being president of the United States. And look what happened in the debate, the first debate he was in. Clearly, he can’t defend himself when confronted with the reality of what his past has been.”
Though admitting Bloomberg funding had assisted some low-income people in Houston, the former Sanders fan wasn’t sure that was enough to “counter” his record on racially discriminatory policies such as stop and frisk and redlining.
“He could have taken his money and done what he said he was going to do: try and get Donald Trump out of office. Well, that’s great, but you don’t have to run for president to accomplish that,” Wald said.
Yet Bloomberg backer Danna Fertsch, 72, said there’s a difference between “money and special interests,” describing it as a “two-headed” issue where “you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t” since “it’s the system we have to work in.”
“If you don’t have the money, you end up getting the money from somewhere else, and they end up being beholden to groups. So I don’t know if there’s an answer unless the government funds people,” the Houston advertising sales representative told the Washington Examiner. “Does he fund himself and be beholden to no special interest so he can do what he thinks he ought to do, or does he get funded by all these big donors and end up having to pay it back some way or another?”
While Super Tuesday won’t officially decide the next Democratic standard-bearer, given 1,991 delegates are needed to clinch the nomination, the map could hand Sanders a commanding lead heading into the convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this summer. The contest is also significant because it covers the breadth of the country, from the Democratic safe havens of California and New England to the crucial general election battlegrounds of the Colorado and North Carolina suburbs, significant not only at the presidential level but also to congressional Democrats aiming to win a majority in the Senate.
