Four of the biggest names in the Democrat presidential race are about to go broke.
That could leave socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders with a clear path to the Democrat presidential nomination.
Or, it could consolidate the “Anyone But Sanders” vote behind one candidate, making him a two-time primary loser.
“Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren each started the month scraping perilously close to the bottom of their campaign bank accounts, posing an existential threat to their candidacies as the Democratic primary goes national,” POLITICO reports.
That’s huge because, between February and March 3, 19 states and territories will hold nominating contests, including 15 on one day.
That requires each of them to burn millions of dollars on a national spree of ads, travel, events and deploying staff. Campaigns were supposed to have spent the last several months compiling tens of millions of dollars of cash to have on hand, but the large, splintered field is forcing candidates to burn cash to gain traction.
Without a clear winner in that sprint, Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren will find it difficult to convince donors to pour more cash into campaigns that are treading water and splitting the field enough to allow Sanders to win states with less than a third of the vote.
That could mean any of the four, or all of them could end Super Tuesday flat broke and with no hope of winning the nomination.
As each dropout, that could clear the field for Sanders to seize the nomination, depending on what Democrats decide to do with their vote as their preferred choice drops out. Between them, supporters of Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren are about half the Democrat electorate.
Though he’s commanding less than 33 percent support nationally, he’s the second choice of many Democrats, meaning as major Democrats drop out Sanders could gain more support than remaining opponents gain.
But that could also be a windfall for billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who has already spent $400 million on his race. With enough personal cash to withstand a long stretch of poor showings, he can wait out Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren, then still have enough money to cultivate and win most of their supporters.
Unless Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren can pull off a Super Tuesday miracle, it looks like the laws of economics are going to start catching up with the Democrat field.
AAN Staff
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