It has become the easiest way to raise a guffaw or a knowing look over dinner in Washington: turning the conversation to the Democratic nomination race.
Who came out of the Democratic debate, primary, or caucus looking strongest? “President Trump” is the increasingly frequent answer.
And so it proved as the Super Tuesday results trickled in from 14 states and one territory. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont saw his recently won position as front-runner evaporate as former Vice President Joe Biden came back from the dead to take the delegate lead.
The results reflect a party divided between a younger, more radical set of first-time voters along the coasts and in the northern states versus an older, Southern black electorate that wants more of the Obama years. Democrats’ incumbent opponent need merely step back and enjoy a muddle that could yet become a fight to the death.
“The results only increase the likelihood that no candidate will have enough delegates for a first-ballot victory at their convention, which only means more chaos,” said Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager.
It means Trump’s big supporters among the PACs can keep their powder dry. Although they have spent months building dossiers of opposition research, the attacks need only start in earnest once a nominee has emerged.
At the same time, low-level trolling continues as supporters happily pour gasoline on volatile embers, issuing attacks on Biden and floating conspiracy theories that the Democratic establishment will cheat Sanders of the win after Biden’s strong showing in the South Carolina primary.
The idea is to boost the self-declared democratic socialist in the nomination race and deliver who they see as a weaker candidate than Biden, whose older supporters are more likely to turn out in November.
So Republicans have shown renewed interest in Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. For example, Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, is preparing to subpoena a witness linked to Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that paid Joe Biden’s son as much as $83,000 per month (according to records shown to Reuters by local law enforcement officers).
Videos and memes questioning the 77-year-old’s fitness for office are also back in vogue.
The Trump campaign circulated a video showing Biden apparently mixing up his sister and his wife during a Super Tuesday rally. The Republican National Committee issued clips of iconic presidential speeches, featuring Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan, which concluded with a recent Bidenism: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know … the thing.”
And the president himself stoked the conspiracy, alleging that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who had shared some of the same leftist terrain as Sanders but had lost any realistic path to the nomination, remained on the ballot with the sole purpose of splitting the liberal vote.
“The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, again! Even the fact that Elizabeth Warren stayed in the race was devastating to Bernie and allowed Sleepy Joe to unthinkably win Massachusetts,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “It was a perfect storm, with many good states remaining for Joe!”
Warren has since dropped out of the race following her poor Super Tuesday showing.
It is not all good news for team Trump, however. There are signs centrist Democrats are managing to set aside their differences and unify behind one candidate, with both Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropping out and endorsing Biden ahead of Super Tuesday.
And Mike Bloomberg’s disastrous showing and campaign exit now free up his millions of dollars for Biden and down-ballot races.
But even that brings a silver lining: more angst for Sanders supporters who feel cheated in their battle for the soul of the party.
“It’s chaos, baby,” said a senior Trump campaign adviser, “and the longer these lefty Bernie supporters feel hoodwinked by the system, the better.”
