COLUMBIA, South Carolina—Hello from South Carolina! I touched down in the “first-in-the-South” primary state yesterday and have already checked South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn’s annual fish fry off my campaign culinary to-do list. While almost everyone in 2020 is gathering here this weekend, it’s been an eventful week elsewhere on the trail. A top progressive Democrat criticized Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris picked up two Congressional Black Caucus endorsements in 24 hours, and Joe Biden neglected a major foreign policy opportunity on Iran. Here are the most important things you probably missed this week.
BIDEN’S MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Former Vice President Joe Biden has been running his 2020 campaign on the positive legacy of the Obama administration, and this week he missed a major opportunity to go all out against President Trump on Iran.
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To be fair, he did strongly condemn the president’s movements, firing off six tweets in light of news that Trump signed off on military strikes against Iran, before deciding not to launch them on Thursday night.
“President Trump's Iran strategy is a self-inflicted disaster,” he tweeted, adding, “It’s sadly ironic that the State Department is now calling on Iran to abide by the very deal the Trump Administration abandoned.”
But the news was totally overshadowed by comments that dominated the 2020 campaign news cycle this week, where Biden reminisced about working with prominent segregationists to get things done in the Senate. As the current Democratic primary frontrunner touches down in South Carolina, he’ll likely be forced to comment on his remarks, which have drawn near-universal criticism from his rivals, taking away an opportunity to proactively tout one of the Obama administration’s signature policies.
As The Daily Beast noted last week, other candidates are already creeping in on Biden’s foreign policy stronghold, and his inability to get out in front of a message–instead of reflexively doubling down on controversial comments–gives his rivals a chance to occupy part of that lane ahead of the debates.
TOP BERNIE INFLUENCER CRITICIZED HIM PUBLICLY
When Waleed Shahid, a self-styled “Very Senior Democratic Strategist” who’s worked with progressive icons Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, took to Twitter to publicly call out the Vermont senator, it was clear something in the leftist orbit was shifting.
It wasn’t just that Shahid, the communications director for the progressive group Justice Democrats, was criticizing Sanders outside of the official stance of the group he represents, it was that he was doing it in defense of an entirely different 2020 candidate: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
“If we had a multi-party parliament, it’d be pretty normal for Sanders and Warren to campaign against each other for leadership in a Social Democratic Party,” Shahid wrote, linking to a tweet Sanders posted calling out “the corporate wing of the Democratic Party” referencing an article about Warren. “That said, I still find this move pretty dissapointing [sic] and unnecessary. Draw contrasts if you want, but not like this.”
This dynamic will be worth watching moving into 2020. Shahid’s remarks came during a week filled with centrist admiration for Warren, and now it seems she also has a prominent defender on the left who typically lavishes praise on her independent rival.
RNC HAS MORE SMALL DONORS THAN DNC
For all the hype about Democrats’ reliance on small donors, their rival party apparatus is pulling ahead, at least temporarily, in that department moving into 2020.
Campaign finance filings show that to date this year, the Republican National Committee has a higher share of small donor donations under $200 than the Democratic National Committee has, totaling 51 percent and 43 percent respectively. The RNC has traditionally had a huge fundraising advantage to the DNC, but it’s this new detail that could create a messaging problem for Democrats campaigning on the disavowment of big money. Look for Republican operatives and party officials to talk up this stat over the next few days, just before Democrats take the stage to debate each other live.
HARRIS PICKS UP TWO CBC ENDORSEMENTS in 24 HOURS
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) should be feeling good going into this weekend’s festivities in South Carolina, the early voting state heavily populated with African-American voters where she has placed much of her focus. In 24 hours, she picked up two endorsements from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Reps. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Al Green (D-TX), bringing her total up to three.
The boost could not have come at a better time for Harris. After lagging recently in national polls and general momentum, she will have a chance to make her case to African-American voters at a series of events in the Palmetto State this weekend. It also gives her some 2020 street cred during the same week that other members of the caucus, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), who hosted his “World Famous Fish Fry” on Friday, offered something of a defense of Biden amid his controversial remarks.
