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Clinton looks to close Sanders out in March
| CNN | - |
Columbia,
South Carolina (CNN) Hillary Clinton, buoyed by a dominating win in
South Carolina on Saturday, is opening a dual-track strategy in her bid
for the White House, gradually pivoting toward Republicans even as she
works to expand her lead across ...
Clinton looks to close Sanders out in March
Story highlights
- "Tomorrow, this campaign goes national," Clinton said
- Clinton campaign hoped to open up a 100 earned delegate lead over Sanders after Super Tuesday
Columbia, South Carolina (CNN)Hillary
Clinton, buoyed by a dominating win in South Carolina on Saturday, is
opening a dual-track strategy in her bid for the White House, gradually
pivoting toward Republicans even as she works to expand her lead across
more than a dozen states voting this week.
"Tomorrow,
this campaign goes national," Clinton said, reveling in her historic
victory in a speech to supporters, signaling a new phase of the
nominating contest.
Sen.
Bernie Sanders, who immediately turned his attention to Super Tuesday
states even before the scope of his defeat was clear, said his campaign
was only beginning and intends to fight to the Democratic convention in
July. While Clinton aides expect Sanders to stay in the race well beyond
March, they see the next two weeks as a critical stretch that could
make it nearly impossible for Sanders to win the nomination.
"The
aircraft carrier is definitely shifting to the general election this
week," a top Democrat close to Clinton said, speaking on condition of
anonymity to avoid getting ahead of the campaign and alienating
Democrats who have yet to vote.
The
wide margin of her South Carolina victory accelerates her transition to
the general election. Clinton has mentioned Sanders less and less in
recent days and in her victory speech targeted Donald Trump, the
Republican front-runner.
Advisers to
Clinton increasingly believe Trump is more likely than not to be the
Republican nominee, which injects a considerable dose of uncertainty
into any fall contest. A Clinton-Trump matchup, should that ultimately
develop, could mean a new general election battleground, with states
like New Jersey, Michigan and even Pennsylvania potentially competitive
for Republicans.
"Despite what you
hear, we don't need to make America great again," Clinton said Saturday
night, referring to Trump's campaign slogan. "America has never stopped
being great."
Clinton's
campaign, feeling more confident than it did after a narrow win in Iowa
and a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, has started to evaluate how
it would run against the now smaller Republican field and what each
candidate would mean for Clinton.
Sen.
Marco Rubio, aides to Clinton believe, is also a worrisome foe. But he
is seen as a more traditional candidate that would allow the campaign to
focus on many of the same swing states then-Sen. Barack Obama had to
win in 2008, namely Florida, Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Clinton looks to open up 100-delegate lead
Clinton
was confident going into South Carolina on Saturday. She spent the day
campaigning in Alabama -- where she stridently hit Republicans at a
fired up rally and joked with supporters at a local coffee shop and
restaurant.
Her aides were even more
hopeful. Clinton's campaign stopped polling in South Carolina a week
before Saturday's contest because they thought it was a waste of money
given what they saw as an all-but-certain win.
Looking
ahead, Clinton's aides know they are not going to knock Sanders out on
March 1, but they hope by the end of the night on Tuesday -- where 865
delegates are at stake -- their campaign will have at least a 100 earned
delegate lead over the Vermont senator.
Bernie Sanders: 'Democracy is not a spectator sport' 01:04
Sanders'
advisers knew that South Carolina was a difficult state for him to win,
which is why he spent the week on the road and Saturday night in
Rochester, Minnesota, where he delivered his usual stump speech --
drawing enthusiastic applause when he delivered sharp criticism of
Clinton's super PAC, paid speeches and vote on the Iraq war.
In
the opening moments, a line he often repeats took on a far more serious
meaning: "What this campaign is about -- is not just electing a
president, it's about transforming America ..."
That's
the challenge facing Sanders in the coming weeks: Can he revive his
serious quest for the nomination or does he gradually become a protest
candidate?
Sanders
acknowledged Clinton's South Carolina victory from the tarmac upon
arriving in Minnesota. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose," Sanders
said. "Tonight we lost. I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her very
strong victory. Tuesday, over 800 delegates are at stake and we intend
to win many, many of them."
In the next
three days, Sanders will target Colorado, Massachusetts and Oklahoma.
Sanders' aides believe that Southern states are all but out of reach,
given the large share of black voters.
Clinton sees a different -- slightly broader -- map on Tuesday.
Clinton
left for Tennessee shortly after claiming victory in South Carolina and
in the coming days she will visit Arkansas, Virginia and Massachusetts,
among other states, in an effort to solidify her support.
"We
are going to compete for every vote in every state," Clinton said on
Saturday night. "We are not taking anything and we aren't taking
anything for granted."
Clinton's top
aides are confident they will run sizable delegate totals in the South,
winning states like Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and
Virginia.
And though they concede that
Sanders will score big in Vermont -- his home state -- they think they
can win in Oklahoma and Minnesota.
Their tightest battles, aides said, will be in Massachusetts and Colorado.
Clinton
will watch returns on Super Tuesday in Miami, Florida, a state that
doesn't vote until March 15. Aides say that decision was made in an
effort to show the campaign is confident they will win the day on
Tuesday and will be ready to look forward to future contests.
Sanders sets Super Tuesday expectations
Sanders' expectations for Super Tuesday: Four wins, six losses and Massachusetts as a toss-up.
The Vermont senator laid out his list of target states Sunday in an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson.
"I'm
in Minnesota. I think we're going to win here in Minnesota, I think
we're going to win in Colorado, I think we're going to win in Oklahoma, I
think we're going to do really well in Massachusetts and I think we're
going to win in Vermont," Sanders said, highlighting five of the 11
Super Tuesday states.
"And I think
we've got a number of states coming up that we're going to do extremely
well and possibly winning, including California and New York state," he
added.
How Sanders lost South Carolina 02:22
The
six Super Tuesday states Sanders didn't mention -- Texas, Georgia,
Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas -- all have large shares of
minority voters and appear to favor Clinton.
Polls
back up Clinton's strong positioning in those states: A new set of NBC
News/Wall Street Journal/Marist surveys released Sunday morning showed
Clinton with leads of about 2-to-1 in Texas, Georgia and Tennessee.
Sanders, meanwhile, is targeting states with whiter and more liberal voters.
The
problem for Sanders: The six states he's all but conceding to Clinton
best the number of delegates up for grabs in the four he said he expects
to win by a 2-to-1 margin.
Still, his
references to New York, which votes April 19, and California, which
votes June 7, foreshadow a lengthy Democratic primary.
Sanders
is facing a tough road through mid-March. After Super Tuesday, the race
will move to Michigan on March 8 -- a key test of whether he'll be able
to defeat Clinton in any of the five big states that vote the following
week, March 15: Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina.
If
Sanders can survive through those contests, the race will shift to
western states with whiter populations, which are more likely to favor
Sanders.
After Saturday's blowout, Sanders admitted he has work to do to make up ground with minority voters.
"We
did really, really badly with older African-American voters. I mean, we
got decimated," he said. "On the other hand, if you look at the younger
people, African-American younger people and whites, we did much
better."
He downplayed the ability of a single state to drastically change the race's outlook.
"If
you were with me yesterday in Texas, you would have seen 10,000 people
out in Austin, 8,000 people out in Dallas," Sanders said.
"We
had a wonderful turnout here in Rochester, Minnesota, last night," he
said. "I believe we have a lot of momentum. You know, sometimes the
media says, 'Well, this state had an election, it is the end of the
campaign.' It is not. We have dozens of more states to go. We're feeling
good about the future."
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