Biden supporters predict big win in Missouri after campaign’s ‘resurrection’
A week ago, there were few Missouri Democratic leaders mentioning Joe Biden’s name and pundits across the nation were drafting the former vice president’s political obituary.
But now that Biden has won primaries in 11 states since Saturday, including South Carolina and his Super Tuesday haul, he’s got a growing list of friends in the state. He looks poised to win a majority of Missouri’s delegates in next Tuesday’s primary and move himself closer to the Democratic nomination for president.
“There’s a lot of stuff in the Bible about resurrection,” quipped Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Methodist pastor and early Biden supporter who will join the former vice president for a rally in Kansas City Saturday evening at the National World War I Museum and Memorial.
Before Tuesday night, Cleaver was one of the few prominent Missouri Democrats backing Biden. Other major names, such as former Gov. Jay Nixon, were attached to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose campaign had steered millions into the state.
But by Wednesday, Bloomberg was out of the race. Biden’s campaign quickly announced a slew of events and endorsements, including former Sen. Jean Carnahan and her son former Rep. Russ Carnahan, members of one of Missouri’s great Democratic dynasties.
Nixon hopped on the Biden train Wednesday, calling him an “experienced, empathetic leader America and the world need now to end this untruthful, divisive and ridiculously simplistic presidency this November.”
The string of Biden campaign events in the state this week will culminate with Saturday stops in St. Louis and Kansas City.
No ‘Show-Me Showdown’
Missouri is one of six states holding primaries next Tuesday, offering 68 of the 352 delegates available. It’s also a state that plays directly to his strengths in the match-up against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Biden’s comeback was fueled by African American voters, a major voting bloc in Kansas City and St. Louis. Non-white voters made up 28 percent of the state’s Democratic primary electorate in 2016, according to exit poll data from CNN.
“Our makeup of the Democratic presidential primary voters is very similar to the demographics of the country at large,” said Lauren Gepford, executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party.
The state party will allocate 44 delegates among the state’s eight congressional districts and another 24 based on the statewide vote total. An additional 10 delegates from Missouri, including Cleaver, aren’t bound to the state results, Gepford said.
The state party had planned a “Show-Me Showdown” in Kansas City on Sunday for primary candidates. But after the string of drop outs this week (former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former hedge fund executive Tom Steyer and Bloomberg) the event was scrapped.
Sanders will hold a rally at the Midland Theatre on Monday afternoon in an effort to drive the vote in Missouri.
The Vermont senator has also scheduled rallies in Detroit and Grand Rapids this weekend as he tries to win a majority of Michigan’s 125 delegates. The state was the site of his 2016 upset win over Hillary Clinton and evidence cited by supporters that he would have performed better in the Midwest had he been the nominee that year.
The other big prize on Tuesday is Washington, a progressive-leaning west coast state with 89 delegates which is likely to go for Sanders, who has energized the left wing of the party with his Medicare for All platform.
Party establishment ‘making a mistake’
Sanders lost the 2016 Missouri primary to Clinton by less than 1 percentage point. His loyal supporters in the state are hopeful he can pull off a victory this year.
“We’re feeling confident and strong in the amount of effort and energy and time not just in this election cycle but really since 2016 to get us ready,” said Dylan Burd, vice president of Our Revolution KC, a pro-Sanders PAC.
Burd said Sanders supporters aren’t deterred by Biden’s Super Tuesday performance. But he said he was disappointed by the decision of establishment Democrats, including former Gov. Bob Holden, to get behind Biden ahead of the primary.
“I think they’re making a mistake in alienating a large population of younger voters in doing that,” Burd said.
“For me when it comes to the differences between Bernie and Biden, their records are very different and speak for themselves in where they stand on health care and education and wages,” he added.
Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat, called the debate between Biden and Sanders supporters a microcosm of the wider conflict in the party over the best path to victory in November: maximizing turnout in progressive pockets or to appealing to more centrist voters.
“It’s a constant conversation among Missouri Democrats about how we increase turnout in the progressive areas while also reaching out to rural Missouri and hearing them and making their issues a priority,” said Quade, who is remaining neutral. “How do we do both at the same time?”
Biden’s supporters, however, believe he’s primed to win the state handily this year with strong support in both urban and rural communities. He has consistently led in the few polls conducted in the state.
He will perform well among African Americans in St. Louis, where nearly half the population is black, said Justin Idelberg, a black voter engagement organizer, who pointed to Biden’s role as vice president for President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president.
“It’s like going over to your grandma’s house and looking at the same Life magazines that have been there forever,” Idelberg said. “They’re stuck on (Biden). They’re thinking, ‘If he were chosen by Obama, he’d have to be a good guy.”
Mayor Lyda Krewson announced her endorsement for Biden on Twitter Wednesday. Krewson spent time with Biden in 2018 when he visited the region.
“It’s time for unity and civility,” Krewson tweeted.
Biden’s campaign has reached out to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas in an effort to secure his endorsement as well, but Lucas has yet to commit to a candidate.
Rep. William Lacy Clay, one of the state’s two Democrats in Congress, stopped short of endorsing Biden but called Tuesday’s results “a course correction made [by] Democratic voters.”
Clay, a St. Louis Democrat who originally backed California Sen. Kamala Harris, faces a primary challenge in August from Cori Bush, a candidate endorsed by Sanders.
Michele Watley, founder of Shirley’s Kitchen Cabinet, a group which mobilizes African American women, said in an email that both candidates will “need to sharpen their talking points about the key issues that matter to Black voters, Black women in particular. The rising housing costs have led to Black women being the most evicted group in Kansas City.”
Watley, a Kansas City-based consultant, oversaw Sanders’ African American outreach in 2016, but is not involved this year. She called her former boss’ lack of African American support on Super Tuesday glaring and noted that a “democratic nominee that doesn’t have the Black vote isn’t positioned to beat Trump.”
At home in the black church
Cleaver said Biden, a devout Irish Catholic, has spent years building relationships with African American lawmakers and ministers, finding common ground through faith, which has carried over to the wider African American community.
“Every non-black politician can’t go to a black church with authenticity. Some of them are out of place and if their team had any sensitivity they wouldn’t put them in that situation,” Cleaver said. “Joe Biden can go to any black church in the country and be at home.”
Cleaver defended Biden’s role in helping craft the 1994 crime bill under President Bill Clinton, which critics today blame for mass incarceration of communities of color. Cleaver contended that African American leaders at the time pushed for the government to get tough on crime.
“In the 1990s in Kansas City we had the Nigerian gang, the Jamaican gang, the Crips and Bloods. Drive-bys every day,” Cleaver said. “People were demanding—black preachers and members of the Congressional Black Caucus—that something be done. So when they talk about Joe Biden voting for that crime bill, chances are where they were going to church their pastor was also supporting it.”
Cleaver noted that prior to this week Biden barely had any campaign operation in the state.
Bloomberg opened multiple campaign offices in the state and region, now all but deserted. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the first candidate to open an office in Missouri, was talking to her team Wednesday about the best path forward.
Cleaver said Biden should absorb Bloomberg’s national campaign apparatus. “That will put Joe Biden on equal footing with Sen. Sanders,” he said.
Sanders’ campaign is airing ads in Missouri aimed and other March 10 states attacking Biden for previously supporting freezing federal spending, including for Medicare and Social Security.
Biden’s spending in the state has paled in comparison to his rivals, with $293,000 toward television and radio ads as of this week, according to an analysis by Medium Buying, a Republican consulting firm which tracks campaign media buys.
Bloomberg spent a massive $9.8 million on television and radio ads. Warren invested $603,000 and Sanders $476,000.
The Kansas City Star’s Jason Hancock reported from Jefferson City and the Belleville News-Democrat’s Kelsey Landis reported from Belleville.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
