On Politics This Week: We Got Results!

February 15, 2020

By matt stevens and maggie astor

Welcome to On Politics on this Saturday morning.

Well, that was exhausting.

One and a half states down, 48.5 to go. Let’s catch you up on what happened during one of the most eventful stretches of the 2020 race so far.

New Hampshire is done

Senator Bernie Sanders arrived to address supporters at his primary night party in Manchester, N.H., on Tuesday.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

New Hampshire voters went to the polls on Tuesday, and we got results several hours later. Amazing!

The summary: Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont won; former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was a close second; and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota came in a surprisingly strong third.

That was not great news for Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who placed fourth with less than 10 percent of the vote. And the results were very bad for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who finished fifth.

You can see the full results here, and take a look at five takeaways from the primary.
In a news analysis, Matt Flegenheimer and Katie Glueck wrote that one loser was the Democratic establishment.
Other colleagues reported that Mr. Sanders’s rise has made some Democrats nervous. The Upshot examined the math that could add up to a Sanders nomination.
And the final days of campaigning in New Hampshire showed a new dynamic: Mr. Buttigieg and Mr. Sanders trying fiercely to create a two-person race.

Iowa is not

We regret to inform you that we still don’t know who won the Iowa caucuses.

Two weeks ago, Pete Buttigieg held a rally in Davenport, Iowa.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Every precinct has reported its results, and they show Mr. Buttigieg with the slightest of leads over Mr. Sanders in the state delegate equivalent count. But both campaigns requested partial recanvasses this week based on irregularities and miscalculations in specific precincts, and the Iowa Democratic Party agreed to check the numbers.

If the errors Mr. Sanders’s campaign reported were all verified, he would net about six state delegate equivalents, which would move him into first place. That would earn him the one extra national delegate reserved for the statewide winner. But if the errors Mr. Buttigieg’s campaign reported were all verified, he would expand his lead over Mr. Sanders by about 14 state delegate equivalents.

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As recriminations continued to fly, Troy Price, the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, announced his resignation on Wednesday. The party will choose an interim leader this weekend.

Our colleagues Reid J. Epstein, Sydney Ember, Trip Gabriel and Mike Baker have the definitive account of how the Iowa caucuses fell apart.
As if Iowa hadn’t given Democrats enough heartburn already, the relatively low turnout there had some people worried, though the turnout in New Hampshire was higher.
Next up are the Nevada caucuses, which will be administered differently from Iowa’s, as our colleague Isabella Grullón Paz reports. A powerful union in Nevada, the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, declined to endorse a candidate this week.

And then there were eight

Andrew Yang at a town hall event in Keene, N.H., last week. He developed a loyal following of disaffected voters from across the ideological spectrum.Todd Heisler/The New York Times

Three candidates ended their campaigns after dismal finishes in New Hampshire: the entrepreneur Andrew Yang (2.8 percent of the vote), former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts (0.4 percent) and Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado (0.3 percent).

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There are now “only” eight candidates in the Democratic race. That is a huge post-New Hampshire field by any historical standard, but compared with the 24-person free-for-all we had a few months ago, it’s luxuriously manageable.

Read our full reports on the departures of Mr. Bennet, Mr. Patrick and Mr. Yang. (You can read an exit interview with Mr. Yang here.)
We’re still tracking the field here.

A bumpy week for Bloomberg

Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City faced a barrage of criticism this week after two sets of old remarks resurfaced.

The first recording, which was posted on Twitter on Monday, was from a 2015 appearance Mr. Bloomberg made at the Aspen Institute. In the clip, he staunchly defended stop-and-frisk policing, a tactic that his mayoral administration used disproportionately against black men and Latinos, and that he apologized for only on the eve of his presidential campaign.

“Ninety-five percent of your murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O.,” he said. “You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, 15 to 25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually every city.”

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Later in the week, comments surfaced from a forum Mr. Bloomberg attended in 2008. He claimed the end of redlining, a racially discriminatory housing practice, had helped cause the financial crisis.

Among those who condemned Mr. Bloomberg’s remarks was Ms. Warren, who told supporters on Thursday that his comments should disqualify him from becoming the Democratic nominee.

A look at the polls

Senator Elizabeth Warren at a town hall event in Arlington, Va., on Thursday. A Monmouth poll released this week had Ms. Warren and Mr. Buttigieg tied for third place with 13 percent apiece.Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times

There is no doubt that Mr. Sanders is the new Democratic front-runner, as evidenced not only by his performances in Iowa and New Hampshire but also by two national polls released this week.

A Quinnipiac poll released Monday showed Mr. Sanders at 25 percent, eight points ahead of Mr. Biden — his first lead outside the margin of error in a national debate-qualifying poll. A Monmouth poll released the next day showed an even larger lead, 26 percent to 16 percent.

Monmouth had Ms. Warren and Mr. Buttigieg tied for third with 13 percent apiece, while Quinnipiac had Ms. Warren at 14 and Mr. Buttigieg at 10. Mr. Bloomberg was also in double digits in both polls — 15 percent in Quinnipiac and 11 percent in Monmouth — putting him one poll away from qualifying for next week’s debate.

Our resident polling expert Giovanni Russonello wrote about Mr. Sanders’s rise.

Policies

Mr. Bloomberg released short plans this week on two crucial issues — immigration and reproductive rights — on which the other major candidates long ago announced their positions.

In his immigration plan, he pledged to create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, set a target of 125,000 for refugee resettlement and end the backlog of naturalization applications. He also said he would “reform Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection,” but gave no details.

His reproductive rights plan calls for codifying Roe v. Wade, repealing the Hyde Amendment, and ending the domestic and global “gag rules” — all points on which the Democratic field is united. Mr. Bloomberg also said he would “encourage states” to allow the prescription of birth control through telemedicine and to authorize a wider variety of medical professionals to perform abortions.