POLITICO: "Joe Biden's campaign isn't dead yet"--in fact it is 'surging'

[UncleNoel]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/27/joe-biden-south-carolina-comeback-118006

Rare positive view from a Biden detractor:

snip//

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Just as his White House bid appeared to be sputtering to an ugly end, there are signs of life for Joe Biden still.

And perhaps more than that.

A second-place finish in Nevada, a major endorsement in South Carolina, a strong debate Tuesday and a pair of polls showing him with a staggering lead here have given new hope to his campaign. Money is flowing anew into his war chest, as well as to a super PAC supporting him.

Armed with those data points, the campaign and super PAC are telling donors that Biden — given his strength among African-American voters and momentum kicking in at the right time — is quickly emerging as the alternative to frontrunner Bernie Sanders.

“The debate was really a huge turning point,” said Amanda Loveday, a senior adviser with the PAC and former director of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Donors who had pulled back from Biden, wondering whether Mike Bloomberg would claim the moderate mantle, have started digging into their pockets again, she said. “That got them off their hands.”

And it got rank-and-file voters on their feet. For a campaign that regularly struggles to attract big and energetic crowds, Biden drew something rarely seen at his rally at Coastal Carolina University in Conway on Thursday: a long line of enthusiastic supporters.

On Thursday, Biden announced on social media that his campaign raised $1.2 million from nearly 30,000 donors the day after the debate, in which Biden turned in his strongest performance of the 10 encounters with his rivals.
Why is Biden still polling so well?

Unite the Country, the super PAC backing Biden, would not yet reveal the level of donations coming in but it did purchase digital ads in the six figures.

While that's a meager amount compared to how much rival campaigns are spending, Biden's surrogates are confident that a commanding win on Saturday will yield momentum and money.

“I feel confident that Joe Biden will win here by double digits. And he’s going to do well on Super Tuesday,” said Dick Harpootlian, a key South Carolina organizer for Biden. Harpootlian took it a step further. “Without Bloomberg in this race, he would sweep Super Tuesday and Bernie would be a distant memory.”

Cash-strapped, and with the campaign set to shift to an array of far-flung states, Biden has been more aggressive seeking out earned media. He's made a series of appearances on local and national TV recently, a noticeable shift from when he was the frontrunner and sitting on a bigger war chest.

The newest data point boosting Biden is a Monmouth poll showing he has a 20-point lead over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina, 36 percent to 16 percent. The poll, and others like it in South Carolina, was welcome news for a campaign buffeted by three straight losses in a row in the other early states. Those losses had insiders writing his campaign off for dead and Biden and his surrogates repeatedly insisting that he was in the midst of a comeback after last week’s second-place finish in Nevada.

A national poll from Fox News, however, was almost the inverse in showing Sanders with 31 percent support to Biden’s 18 percent.

But Biden’s campaign said that a big win in South Carolina will change the national polls. His campaign had always planned to use South Carolina as a springboard into the run of Super Tuesday states and beyond to make the case that he does better than any other Democrat with voters of color. But Sanders’s win in Nevada, where he racked up big margins with Latinos, challenged that narrative.

The newest data point boosting Biden is a Monmouth poll showing he has a 20-point lead over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina, 36 percent to 16 percent.

The state polls like FL are ticking up and the national polls will soon begin reflecting Biden's strength.

MoJoe GO!

[Kurt V.]

1. Can't count joe out. too many southern states to go and super delegates in play

[pamdb]

2. BIden and sanders

I made my fist contribution to Biden. So far, my contributions have been only to Gary Peters (democratic senator from Michigan).

I have no problem with Bernie Sanders AS president, I just don't think he'll ever get it. I don't have a lot of faith in college students and "young people". Sorry. Been there , done that with McGovern. I'll vote for him, but I don't think he'll ever get it. I'm more m=worried
about the Bernie Bros who won't vote for anyone but Bernie. I don't trust them or him Thats how desperate I am to defeat the big orange pustule on the buttocks of humanity.

[UncleNoel]

6. Great! Joe is MoJoe now!

[Sloumeau]

3. UncleNoel, thank you so much for posting this! :)

This is great news for Joe Biden!

[empedocles]

4. Good news. Volatile polls

[UncleNoel]

9. The Polls are pretty steady for a big win is SC for Joe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_2020_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#South_Carolina_primary

[peggysue2]

15. Yes, Yes and Yes!!

Talk about a turnaround coming at exactly the right time!

This is great news, UncleNoel.

[UncleNoel]

5. Hi Sloumeau, thanks!

MoJoe will beat Trump like a drum.

[Dem Femme Fatale]

7. ?

It's bs urging. ?

[DarthDem]

8. Outstanding

When Politico, for crying out loud, says something pro-Biden, you know it's pretty much true.

[Progressive dog]

10. Go Joe

[Laelth]

11. Wow!

If that's a detractor, I can hardly imagine what his supporters are thinking.

-Laelth

[emmaverybo]

12. Proud to support Joe. Qualifications, experience, and job-specific knowledge plus big ❤️

No other candidate connects heart to heart with Americans like Joe. It’s that which Trump fears.

[blm]

13. FOX probably polled Operation chaos voters.

I do think Republicans deviously voting for Bernie will be a bigger factor than Dems and media want to admit.

[Cha]

14. The Comeback Kid.. what an Inspiring story!

[honest.abe]

16. Joe is back!

[ancianita]

17. +1

[MustLoveBeagles]

18. +1

Great pic of them.

[MustLoveBeagles]

19. This is good news but you might want to fix the thread title

[UncleNoel]

20. Did that. Thanks.

[MustLoveBeagles]

21. You're welcome UncleNoel

Thanks for the thread.

[trickyguy]

22. This is fantastic news for the Biden campaign and all of us who support him. Just gave

Joe two donations last night because I was so excited that he's doing well.

Have supported him from the beginning and will until he is the next POTUS.

Go Joe. And Jill too.

[cstanleytech]

23. In the end any of them can win still but what I think is most important if we want to beat Trump is

that we all stick together and the best route to that I think is that whoever wins the nomination publicly offers the VP slot to the person that came in 2nd and if they decline then offer it to the next one from them.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. So you are Uncle Noel not UncleJoe!!

[UncleNoel]

27. Not UncleJoe. Noel Schutz, retired professor living in the mountains of central Taiwan.

[MasonDreams]

25. Anyone almost could beat rump but Biden is not a strong candidate.

He first ran 30 yrs ago and has never won a primary or caucus. He struggles to make sentences and can't make three in a row.

He's against bussing and for parental education about record players? No more embarrassments, he told me to vote for someone else.

[Progressive2020]

26. Bloomberg's Error

I think Bloomberg's strategy of skipping South Carolina and focusing on Super Tuesday will ultimately result in his failure. Bloomberg was positioning himself to be the moderate, anti-Bernie candidate. He would be fighting for this crown mainly with Joe Biden. Now, with some polls showing a Biden surge in South Carolina, and no Bloomberg in that contest, Biden has a real chance. If Biden takes the lion's share of the victory there and shows that he can beat Sanders, it will resurrect Biden's flagging campaign after losses in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada.

If this happens, if Biden wins South Carolina and holds Bernie down to low numbers there, Biden's campaign will be re-energized for Super Tuesday. Then it may well turn out to be a contest between Biden and Bernie. If Bloomberg had gotten on the ballot in South Carolina, he might have been able to stop Biden there. Now, with Biden unopposed by Bloomberg in South Carolina, Biden may be positioned for a significant win in that state. And that could propel Biden into the Super Tuesday contest as the Democratic alternative to Bernie. It might be too late at that point for Bloomberg, and the contest will essentially be between Biden and Sanders.

[UncleNoel]

28. You nailed it!

[helpisontheway]

29. The only bad thing is that many people have already voted. If they changed their mind about Sanders

it is too late.