Joe Biden expressed confidence that he will perform well in California's primary while visiting a San Francisco Bay Area diner.

Former Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco voted for Mike Bloomberg, whom he recently met with for two hours.

A dark money group has spent an additional $868,000 on digital ads opposing Bernie Sanders, constituting one of the biggest anti-Sanders efforts yet.

Polls show Elizabeth Warren trailing Bernie Sanders in her home state, piling pressure onto the Massachusetts senator.





7:20 P.M. (EST) IN SAN FRANCISCO

Willie Brown votes for Bloomberg, doubts Biden

Former Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco, who has watched the California political scene for decades, said on Tuesday that Joe Biden probably had “a better shot at the lottery” than coming out a winner in the state’s Super Tuesday primary.

“It’s so unpredictable that you wouldn’t believe it … way beyond anybody’s rational ability to call,’’ Brown said as voters cast ballots in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Asked about the chances for the billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg — whom he met with for two hours recently and then voted for — Brown predicted that in California, “he’s not going to get his money’s worth.” The former powerful California Assembly speaker, who was once known as the “Ayatollah” of state politics and has advised Bloomberg, then showed off a spiffy pair of blue suede shoes that he joked had been bought since his new gig.

Asked why Sen. Kamala Harris of California, whom he once dated, didn’t endorse Biden — as many predicted she would during his stop in Oakland on Tuesday — Brown joked that “she’s holding out” for Bernie Sanders.

Brown made remarks on Tuesday at the traditional San Francisco Election Day lunch at the historic bistro John’s Grill. The annual event, which he co-sponsors with restaurant owner John Konstin, drew a crowd of about 2,000 local politicians, political junkies and locals who chowed down on the free Italian food and wine. Attendees included California’s lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis — and her husband, Marcos Kounalakis, the president and publisher emeritus of the Washington Monthly magazine — who celebrated her birthday at the event with Brown and the crowd singing to her; former San Francisco Supervisor Leslie Katz; Democratic strategists Donnie Fowler, PJ Johnston and Alex Clemens.

But with coronavirus fears abounding in California, there were some noticeable changes: The traditional handshake greeting among the political set was often replaced with fist bumps, elbow bumps and even toe taps.

- Carla Marinucci

5:30 P.M. (EST)

Dark money group drops $868,000 opposing Sanders on Super Tuesday

The outside group Big Tent Project Fund has spent an additional $868,000 on digital ads opposing Bernie Sanders, constituting one of the biggest anti-Sanders efforts yet, according to federal elections filings.

The nonprofit organization — which is commonly known as a dark money group because it is not legally required to disclose its donors — said in a filing with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday that it spent just under $868,000 on digital ads opposing Sanders in 10 states, all of which are voting today on Super Tuesday.

The group has spent over $4.8 million in the last week and a half, with all of its spending opposing Sanders in Nevada and South Carolina (the last two early-voting states) and on Super Tuesday.

“Now who is funding these ads? Why are they funding these ads? Well, because we have a corrupt political system,” Sanders said about the group at a news conference on Monday.

The group is helmed by Jonathan Kott, a former senior aide to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), POLITICO previously reported .

“Socialist Bernie Sanders is promising the world, but at what cost? 60 trillion dollars in spending and the largest middle class tax hike ever. So what's the true cost? 4 more years of Trump,” reads one of the ads from the group, which is currently running on Facebook.

- Zach Montellaro

3:21 p.m. (est) in oakland, california

Biden projects confidence in California diner pit stop

You would be forgiven to think it was anywhere else but California, let alone Oakland.

But there was Joe Biden, working a crowded diner off of Jack London Square, hugging patrons, throwing his arms around their shoulders as they embraced the former vice president who has climbed in snap polls ahead of Super Tuesday.

A crush of media awaited his visit — the travelers, but also dozens of California reporters for whom Biden has been a virtual stranger. Bernie Sanders, who leads in the state, has been everywhere with his massive rallies led by big-name musical openers. Biden, whose next stop is in Los Angeles, has been scarce.

But the chance to earn some free media on Election Day in the state’s largest media markets brought him here. And nobody seemed too upset to see him in the flesh.

Joe Biden greets supporters at Buttercup, a restaurant in Oakland, Calif., while an onlooker holds a "Joe is senile" sign in the window. | Carla Marinucci/POLITICO

He ordered a quarter-pie of coconut cream, paid in cash – “last of the big spenders from the east” then roamed the restaurant talking to diners.

Asked how he would do in California: “I’m heading down to SoCal from here and it feels good, I feel good. We’re going to do fine.”

Asked if this is the place that will help him, he said, “it’s the kind of stuff that I like.”

“My hopes are high... I think we’ll do well on Super Tuseday," he continued. "I think we’ll qualify here, we’ll beat the threshold.”

Asked if early voters would hurt him, “I don’t know,” he admitted.

California state Assemblyman Kevin Mulllin was bullish on Biden's chances.

“He clearly has the momentum, he will exceeed the 15 percent (the threshold to win statewide delegates in California) ..and he’s going to win a bunch of delegates across CA. but the VP is uniquely positioned not only to unite the party, but unite and heal the country come fall.”

Another longtime supporter beamed with pride.

State Sen. Steve Glazer, an East Bay Area official who managed campaigns for former Gov. Jerry Brown and was the first state elected to endorse Biden, said early returns will show Bernie Sanders “running away with it..but as the night goes on and they count absentees, you’ll see the trend toward Biden.’’

Biden, Glazer said, as the candidate worked the packed room, “connects with people. He’s a regular guy and the best part of him is as a public leader.

“He’s down with us and connecting with people whereever he goes.”

Outside, as Biden prepared to leave, a small group of Sanders supporters were protesting Biden. Tim Miller, the former adviser to Jeb Bush, was talking to reporters and surveying the action. On Twitter, moments later, he wrote that he’d given his “permission to break the (obvious) scoop that I voted in my first Democratic primary today for Joseph Robinette Biden.”

- Christopher Cadelago and Carla Marinucci

2:19 p.m.

James Comey says he's backing Biden for president

Former FBI Director James Comey announced that he’d voted in his first ever Democratic primary on Tuesday, backing Joe Biden in the race to challenge President Donald Trump in November.

Comey, who led the FBI during the Obama administration before being fired by Trump just months into his presidency, said on Twitter he pulled the lever for the party “dedicated to restoring values” in the White House and indicated he voted for the former vice president he once worked under.

Echoing comments from Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who dropped out of the race on the eve of Tuesday’s primaries in more than a dozen states and backed Biden, Comey wrote that “I agree with @amyklobuchar: We need [a] candidate who cares about all Americans and will restore decency, dignity to the office.”

He then argued that his vote was based on a belief that Biden is the strongest candidate to defeat Trump: "There is a reason Trump fears @JoeBiden and roots for Bernie. #Biden2020.”

But that endorsement was met with a chilly reception by at least one Biden staffer.

“Yes, customer service? I just received a package that I very much did not order. How can I return it, free of charge?” Andrew Bates, a communications staffer for Biden and an alum of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, retorted in a tweet.

- Caitlin Oprysko

2:05 p.m.

Former Obama defense secretary endorses Biden

Former Vice President Joe Biden scored a high-profile endorsement Tuesday from another Obama administration cabinet official: Chuck Hagel, a former Defense secretary and Republican senator.

“Joe Biden is not only a good friend, but he’s a man I have admired for many, many years. I worked with him in the Senate, I worked with him when I was secretary of defense,” Hagel told CNN.

“I don’t know of a more experienced, better person — a more decent person in politics,” he continued. “He’s smart, he understands, he listens. There is no perfect candidate. But I think Joe Biden, for this time in our country, with the challenges that we have, I think he’s the right person.”

Asked why he opted to support Biden rather than his other former Senate colleague in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, Hagel said that Sanders’ “positions and his issues are just too far left,” and predicted that “Democrats up and down the ballot will have an issue if he is the candidate.”

- Quint Forgey

11:53 a.m.

Biden team launches Klobuchar ad in Minneapolis

Former Vice President Joe Biden's team made quick work of Sen. Amy Klobuchar's endorsement, highlighting the senator's backing in a new television ad airing in Minnesota.

The ad is airing in the Minneapolis area, according to the campaign, as voters in Minnesota head to the polls.

Minnesota is one of the 14 states voting on Super Tuesday, the single largest day delegate-wise in the entire primary calendar.

"It is time to turn back the division and the hate," Klobuchar says in the ad, which uses footage from her appearance at Biden's Monday night rally. "Vote for decency. Vote for dignity. Vote for a heart for our country."

The campaign also said Klobuchar cut a radio ad supporting Biden that will also air in the Minneapolis market.

- Zach Montellaro

11:25 a.m. in Miami

Bloomberg denies he’s siphoning votes from Biden

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg insisted on Tuesday that his ongoing presidential campaign would not end up boosting Sen. Bernie Sanders's left-wing campaign by splitting the vote of more moderate Democrats.

“I’m not helping Bernie Sanders. I’m trying to help myself,” he told POLITICO as he campaigned in Florida.

Criticism of Bloomberg has spiked in recent days after the race's two other prominent moderates — Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg — ended their bids over the last 48 hours and endorsed Joe Biden.

Bloomberg, who entered the race late last year when Biden began to flag in the polls, said he planned to stay in the race despite signs of a resurgence from the former vice president.

“I got in because I thought that I could beat Donald Trump and I thought I could do the job of being president,” he said Tuesday. “That’s why I’m here and that’s why I started and that’s where we’re going to wind up — in the White House.”

- Caitlin Oprysko and Marc Caputo

11:20 a.m. in cambridge, Massachusetts

School children greet Warren at her polling place, but polls show her behind in Mass.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren left her Cambridge home, walked down the street to the place where she has voted for 25 years, and saw her name as a candidate for president Tuesday morning.

Hundreds of Warren supporters lined the street as the senator, her husband, Bruce Mann, and their dog Bailey walked down the street to cast their votes in the primary. Polls show Warren trailing Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in her home state, piling pressure onto the Massachusetts senator who has not won a state so far in the Democratic contest.

Warren supporters crowded the street with signs, chanting "It's time for a woman in the White House" and "She's electable if you vote for her." Elementary schoolers waved to Warren from the windows of the Graham & Parks School, and some threw red and pink confetti from the second story as she approached the building.

After she voted, Warren stood in the bed of a pickup truck and thanked her supporters before snapping selfies.

“We’ve been here to vote every time with that spark of hope in our hearts that the vote will matter, that we will build a better country. That’s what this election for me is all about,” Warren said.

Warren won't stay in her home state to watch the results come in on Tuesday night. She's headed to Michigan, a state which votes March 10, to hold a rally in Detroit.

"It was just next on the schedule to get out there and talk to people, I don't think you should read anything special into it," Warren said of her next stop.

- Stephanie Murray

11 a.m.

Deadly overnight tornadoes disrupt voting in Tennessee

At least 19 people died overnight in Tennessee after a line of tornadoes crossed the state, a destructive start to Super Tuesday that is already disrupting primary voting.

At a press conference in Nashville Tuesday morning, Gov. Bill Lee said deaths have been reported in four different counties, including two fatalities in Nashville, the state capital. Lee urged area residents to avoid downtown Nashville, where extensive damage was reported, and cautioned that the death toll could grow.

“There’s a really good possibility that there may be more [deaths],” Lee said, “because of the number of folks that we know that are missing and haven’t been reported. It’s early yet.”

Tens of thousands of Tennesseans are still without power, officials said, including polling places where voters were set to cast their ballots. Polls are scheduled to close statewide at 8 p.m. eastern time.

“We’ve actually deployed generators to polling places that are reporting that they don’t have power,” said Lee, a Republican. “So, of course we want people to exercise caution in areas like downtown Nashville where there’s damage in the streets and that sort of thing. But we also want folks to exercise their rights to get out there and vote. It’s a very important day for that. So, we’re going to make it possible for as many folks as we can to vote — and wherever we find a polling station that there’s a problem, we’re reaching out to correct that.”

- Steve Shepard

10:29 a.m.

'I just don't think we are the face of the establishment': Klobuchar dismisses criticism of Biden endorsements

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar pushed back Tuesday against suggestions by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters' that senior members of the Democratic establishment are lining up to thwart his ascendant presidential bid.

The remarks from the Minnesota senator came after she withdrew from the White House race Monday and joined two other former Democratic presidential candidates — former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke — in endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign.

"You know, I think, first of all, what was cool about last night is you have Mayor Pete and you have Beto O'Rourke, who electrified Texas in his Senate race, and myself," Klobuchar told "CBS This Morning."

"And I just don't think we are the face of the establishment," she continued. "I think we're fresh faces in our party."

- Quint Forgey

10:23 a.m. in Burlington, Vermont

Bernie drives himself to the polls and gladhands voters

Bernie Sanders drove himself and his wife, Jane, to his polling place in his home state — an unmistakable effort to show that he is a man of the people.

Inside, he participated in a bit of retail politics that he usually eschews, shaking hands with voters. He told reporters that “you have increased the GDP of Vermont by 16 percent — we appreciate it.”

He added “we look forward to doing well” today and gave a mini version of his stump speech, saying his campaign is about defeating “the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country” and creating “an economy and a government that works for all, and not just the few."

Sanders was asked how he slept the night before.

“Last night’s the first time I’ve been home in a very long time,” he said. “Slept well."

- Holly Otterbein

9:17 a.m.

Beto: A Biden win could put Texas Dems in control of Congressional map

Beto O'Rourke said Tuesday that nominating Joe Biden for president could the key for Democrats trying to redraw Texas's Congressional map for years to come.

Listing his three reasons for endorsing the former vice president, O'Rourke asserted that Biden could defeat President Donald Trump in a general election, charged that Biden was best-poised to accomplish Democrats' ambitious policy agenda, and suggested Biden's presence at the top of the ticket could help wrest control of the Texas state legislature from Republicans.

"Here in Texas, we are but nine seats from claiming a majority in the state House for the first time in 20 years," O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman, told the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

"And if we do that in a census year, when we redraw the political boundaries in the state, we will no longer have the racist gerrymandering that has made us the lowest voter turnout state in the country," O'Rourke continued. "And we'll be able to start moving forward on things that we care about: Ending gun violence. Expanding Medicaid and access to health care. Making sure that this state leads the way in confronting climate change."

- Quint Forgey

12:29 a.m. in Los Angeles

Warren warns against Biden's 'Washington insider' endorsements

Joe Biden may be surging into Super Tuesday after consolidating the support of his party’s moderate wing, but Elizabeth Warren said Monday that his wave of endorsements should be a red flag for voters.

“No matter how many Washington insiders tell you to support him, nominating a fellow Washington insider will not meet this moment,” Warren said at a rally in Los Angeles. “Nominating a man who says we do not need any fundamental change in this country will not meet this moment. And nominating someone who wants to restore the world before Donald Trump, when the status quo has been leaving more and more people behind for decades, is a big risk for our party and for our country.”

For a sitting senator to paint anyone as a creature of Washington requires a certain pluck. But the presidential primary is quickly narrowing. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar — two of Biden’s endorsers — abandoned their campaigns earlier than Warren’s allies had expected. And after her own dispiriting finishes in the early nominating states, Warren is verging on being left behind.

In Los Angeles on Monday, Warren’s supporters cheered when said she is “looking forward to gaining as many delegates as we can tomorrow, especially from the great state of California.”

There was no photo line. She left the rally to fly home to Massachusetts to vote in her state’s primary on Tuesday.

- David Siders

Look ahead

Joe Biden

Biden will head to the biggest delegate prize of them all on Tuesday: California, where he is hoping late-breaking votes will limit Sanders’ delegate gains in the state.

Biden was running far behind Sanders in California in polling ahead of the South Carolina primary. And even with his victory in that state — and the sea of endorsements that followed from the likes of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar — he is unlikely to catch him in California.