POLITICO Playbook: What Buttigieg’s exit means for Bernie and Biden Presented by

The remaining candidates that are not named Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are going to be under tremendous pressure to end their campaigns. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

DRIVING THE DAY

PETE BUTTIGIEG’S DECISION to abandon his presidential run has opened up a new phase in the contest, in which the remaining candidates that are not named JOE BIDEN and BERNIE SANDERS are going to be under tremendous pressure to end their campaigns.

THE CALLS TO DROP OUT ARE NOT FAIR, you’re gonna hear people say -- and perhaps they’re not. But it’s clear at this point that BIDEN and SANDERS are the only two candidates left with mass appeal.

TWO POSSIBLE OUTCOMES THIS WEEK would highlight the splintered nature of the Democratic Party. Situation one: SANDERS sweeps through Super Tuesday, keeping BIDEN at bay in California and inching closer to the nomination. Establishment Democrats resume their panic. Situation two: BIDEN makes headway, cleaning up in the South and overperforming in California and Texas, which could keep him within 150 delegates from SANDERS. In that case, BIDEN’S campaign believes it next enters into friendlier territory: Florida, Georgia and other states where BIDEN is polling well. The prospect of a contested convention will drive BERNIE supporters nuts, because they believe party rules are stacked against them there.

STEVE KORNACKI of NBC says the best-case scenario for BIDEN is that he emerges from this week 61 delegates behind BERNIE: 590 to 529, a situation Kornacki calculated by assuming BIDEN gets 19% of the vote in California, wins big across the South, does well in Colorado, Massachusetts and Minnesota and keeps it close in Texas. Kornacki looks at a range of other scenarios, including if BIDEN misses the threshold for delegates in California, which would have BERNIE up by roughly 300 delegates. A margin of 300 is huge and likely uncatchable, but anywhere from 60 to 150 gives BIDEN a path to the nomination.

ONE NOTE OF CAUTION: There’s a chance we won’t know the full delegate picture of this week for a number of days, because counting votes in sprawling California is often slow going.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER SUPER TUESDAY, many people will start to examine MIKE BLOOMBERG’S station in the race. He set out to offer himself as an alternative to BERNIE since, in his supporters’ estimation, BIDEN was imploding. Now BIDEN and BERNIE are running close. So what now?

THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN IS SO AWASH IN MONEY it is now spending that cash on blimps. Imagine if BLOOMBERG dropped out and decided to start spending for BIDEN.

NEW … WE NOTED IN PLAYBOOK ON SUNDAY that the BIDEN campaign was trying to get members of Congress to endorse post-South Carolina to project strength in upcoming states.

-- BIDEN rolled out the following endorsements Sunday: Virginia Reps. Bobby Scott, Jennifer Wexton and Don Beyer, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Arizona Rep. Greg Stanton. Notable pols: former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, former Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, California state Controller Betty Yee, Chicago Alderman Walter Burnett and Texas state Sen. Carol Alvarado.

PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP is now the youngest male candidate left in the election.

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: MIKE GORDON and JON FISHMAN of Phish will be playing Bernie’s Super Tuesday nighttime rally in Burlington.

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SUPER TUESDAY ROUNDUP ...

-- TICK TOCK … ELENA SCHNEIDER: “Inside the sudden end of Pete Buttigieg’s campaign”

-- NYT, A1: SHANE GOLDMACHER in New York and REID EPSTEIN in Plains, Ga., and Selma, Ala.: “Ratcheting up the pressure on Democrats to unite behind a single stop-Sanders candidate, an influential donor for Mr. Biden circulated an email to his political network calling for some rivals to the former vice president to drop out. At the same time, Bloomberg campaign officials presented internal polling projections to skittish Democratic Party leaders, arguing that Mr. Bloomberg’s presence in the race was actually containing Mr. Sanders’s potential to run up the score on Super Tuesday. …

“‘The Democratic Party needs to come together behind Joe and make this a two person race,’ Jon Henes, who was Senator Kamala Harris’s finance chair and now supports Mr. Biden, wrote to friends and other donors before Mr. Buttigieg quit the race, according to a person who reviewed the email. He went on to add, ‘Suspending a campaign is incredibly difficult for any candidate but right now we need our candidates to be realistic.’” NYT

-- CNN’S JEFF ZELENY: “Obama tells Biden he won’t endorse anybody yet”: “A person close to Obama told CNN that the former president’s view has not changed: He has no immediate plans to offer an endorsement of Biden -- or anyone -- as the nominating contest heads into Super Tuesday.

“‘We are skeptical that an endorsement coming from us could truly change the political winds right now,’ the person close to Obama told CNN. If Obama were to endorse Biden, the person said, there is ‘a very real chance it backfires.’

“But more importantly, Obama still thinks his most valuable role is to try and unify the party. ‘He feels that he's singularly positioned to help unify the party at the end of this,’ the Obama confidant said. ‘And if he were try to put his thumb on the scale now, it would take away his ability to do so when it's most needed -- the general election.’

“The person added: ‘So he’s prepared to play a vigorous role in coalescing the party around the nominee and working to defeat Trump, but weighing in now likely only divides things worse and weakens his standing for when the Party will need it most.’”

-- DAVID SIDERS and CHRIS CADELAGO in L.A.: “Sanders thunders into California”: “For one 24-hour period, Joe Biden had everything going right for him — from his win in South Carolina to Pete Buttigieg dropping out, clearing one moderate opponent from the presidential primary field.

“But the progressive movement’s answer to Biden’s run of good fortune was quickly materializing in California — where the deafening crowds that met Bernie Sanders on Sunday screamed a reminder of how quickly he still could pull away from Biden.” POLITICO

-- WAPO’S SCOTT WILSON in San Jose: “One key rival for Sanders is Warren, who is hovering around the 15 percent vote threshold, according to some recent polls. Her campaign has about half as many staff members on the ground as Sanders. ‘California’s a progressive state, and Elizabeth Warren is a progressive candidate,’ said Kevin Liao, the campaign’s state spokesman. ‘She’s a good fit for the values of the state.’”

-- ICYMI: BERNIE reminded a rally in San Jose on Sunday night that BIDEN voted for the Iraq War.

-- WSJ’S @elizacollins1: “It’s clear Biden’s win yesterday has gotten to Sanders, who is going on longer than usual about how Biden’s record would cause him to lose to Trump. It has increased in length over the last week, but seems even longer now.”

FOR KEVIN MCCARTHY … L.A. TIMES: “The leader of California’s Republican Party has a strategy for success: Never mention Trump,” by George Skelton in Sacramento

Good Monday morning.

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THE LATEST ON THE CORONAVIRUS: Two dead in Washington. A case in Manhattan. Two in Florida. Another in Rhode Island. CNN is counting 89 cases nationwide. And that’s just what’s been detected so far. Ever since TRUMP put himself -- instead of the experts -- forward to talk about the coronavirus, he has made himself the face of this crisis.

THIS ISN’T THE RUSSIA PROBE, but rather a public health crisis for which answers are elusive and often politically unsatisfying. Republicans close to the White House have been arguing behind the scenes that they need outside validators in the business community and among international health experts to help calm the markets. Some have even argued that it’s time for the administration to try and find one or two Democrats who could be involved in the response.

-- TODAY … VP MIKE PENCE and DEBORAH BIRX, who is serving as the coronavirus response coordinator, will conduct a briefing at 5 p.m.

DOW FUTURES are pointing up this morning.

THE GLOBAL PICTURE -- “Patients fill hospitals in more places as new virus expands,” by AP’s Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung in Seoul, South Korea: “Virus cases in South Korea surged and millions of children in Japan stayed home from school Monday as officials struggled to contain the epidemic in more than 60 countries, including the United States, where two people have died and signs of a bigger outbreak loomed.

“As new battle fronts against the coronavirus opened with surprising speed around the globe, recovered patients left China’s hastily built hospitals and isolation wards, freeing up patient beds in the city where the COVID-19 illness has hit hardest.

“China, where the epidemic began in December, reported only 202 new cases over the previous 24 hours with another 42 deaths. That brings the country’s total number of reported cases to 80,026 with 2,912 deaths in all. The city of Wuhan accounted for most of the new cases, but also saw 2,570 patients released.” AP

-- “The glaring loophole in U.S. virus response: Human error,” by Brianna Ehley

NEW … MARIE YOVANOVITCH is joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program. YOVANOVITCH will primarily be working on her book while there.

HILLARY TO SXSW … SNEAK PEEK: SXSW and THE TEXAS TRIBUNE have quite the lineup for SXSW March 13-15 in Austin: 3/14: Joy Reid will interview Hillary Clinton … Kasie Hunt will interview Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). 3/15: Dylan Byers will interview Olivia Nuzzi, Jackie Kucinich, Manu Raju and Jake … Anna will interview Anita Hill. Full lineup out at 10 a.m.

WHAT THEY’RE SAYING ABOUT AFGHANISTAN … A SENIOR ADMINISTRATION official sent this along about the U.S. peace deal with the Taliban: “This agreement likely represents the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in the 18-year war. There are many uncertainties, and any decision to significantly scale down forces will be based on conditions on the ground -- assuring we contain terrorists threats to the homeland -- but this could be the first step to ending America’s longest war.”

ALEX ISENSTADT: “Republicans plot blue-state invasion in November”: “National Republicans are launching a multi-million-dollar field effort in four blue states, a move that comes as Democrats express mounting concern that a Bernie Sanders nomination could doom them in critical down-ballot contests.

“The Republican National Committee is deploying dozens of field staffers to California, New Jersey, New York and Illinois. While none of the four states is remotely in play at the presidential level, each has numerous competitive House races and played a critical role in helping Democrats capture the chamber in 2018. The committee is also dispatching staff to Nebraska. While the state is certain to go for President Donald Trump in November, it is home to the district where endangered Republican Rep. Don Bacon is seeking reelection.

“The RNC plans to spend at least $4 million on field deployment across the five states by Election Day, according to an aide briefed on the decision. It's an unusual investment, since the committee typically focuses its field resources exclusively on swing states in presidential election years.” POLITICO

DOJ WATCH -- “Bad news for Silicon Valley: William Barr is taking control of antitrust probes,” by Leah Nylen: “Attorney General William Barr has spent months taking greater control of the Justice Department's antitrust probes into the big tech companies, a development that could increase the peril for major players like Google and Facebook.

“Barr has centralized oversight of antitrust matters under a handful of appointees in his office and that of his deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen. Those moves have sidelined the Antitrust Division’s current leadership, headed by Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, who for the past year has been the public face of DOJ’s investigations into Silicon Valley’s treatment of its users and customers.” POLITICO

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JAY KHOSLA, who recently left Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL’S office, where he led domestic policy, is joining Humana as SVP of government affairs.

TRUMP’S MONDAY -- The president will meet with Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez at 10:30 am. in the Oval Office. He will have lunch with Pence at 12:45 p.m. in the private dining room.

TRUMP, PENCE and members of the coronavirus task force will meet with pharmaceutical execs in the Cabinet Room at 3 p.m. Trump will leave the White House at 4:10 p.m. en route to North Carolina for a 7 p.m. political rally at Bojangles’ Coliseum in Charlotte. Afterward, he will return to Washington and arrive at the White House at 10:30 p.m.

PLAYBOOK READS

PHOTO DU JOUR: An Iraqi refugee waits Sunday near the Turkish-Greek border, where thousands of migrants massed upon Turkey’s announcement that it would open border gates for 72 hours after an escalation of fighting in Syria. | Chris McGrath/Getty Images

POLITICO MAGAZINE’S MICHAEL KRUSE: “Mike Bloomberg’s Secret Weaknesses”

BEN SMITH’S NYT DEBUT: “Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism”

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WE KNEW THIS WAS COMING … WSJ’S GREG IP: “Businesses Fret Over Potential Bernie Sanders Presidency”: “The rapid ascent of Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries—despite a weak showing in Saturday’s South Carolina vote—confronts American business with the once unthinkable: The most powerful policy maker in the world could soon be a strident, lifelong critic of capitalism and big business.

“Current and former business leaders and analysts have greeted the prospect with a mix of concern, skepticism and disbelief. Most doubt the Vermont independent, who calls himself a democratic socialist and caucuses with Democrats, could win against President Trump in November, and if he does, could not or would not implement his boldest ideas.

“If they are wrong, some see an existential threat. For most businesses, contingency planning boils down to one word: Congress. Health companies assume a Republican-controlled Senate would block Medicare for All, which would ban private insurance.” WSJ

-- “House Democrats begin plotting how to run with Bernie,” by Sarah Ferris and Heather Caygle: “Congressional Democrats are starting to figure out how to share the ticket with Bernie Sanders in November — if they have to. With party leaders preaching unity and Sanders a frontrunner for the presidential nomination, Democrats are working to craft a version of his platform that has a bit less socialism but is still something they could present to their own voters, even in swing districts.

“But even as some Democrats privately test-drive rhetoric for sharing a Sanders ticket — like how to talk up expanded health care, rural broadband or new workforce programs — there are others who say they could have to strongly distance themselves from the Vermont independent if he wins the party’s nod.” POLITICO

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HEADS UP … JAMES ARKIN and MARIANNE LEVINE on ALABAMA SENATE: “Jeff Sessions’ bid to return to the Senate has hit a roadblock. Most polling has shown the former attorney general narrowly ahead of his two rivals in Tuesday’s GOP primary in Alabama — but he’s well short of the 50 percent needed to win the nomination without a runoff. And a poor performance on Tuesday could foreshadow defeat in a one-on-one runoff, a potentially ignominious end to Sessions’ political comeback after President Donald Trump bounced him from his cabinet.” POLITICO

-- “Kennedy holds narrow lead over Markey in Senate race, new Suffolk/Globe poll finds,” by The Boston Globe’s Victoria McGrane: “Five months into his audacious primary challenge against a seasoned incumbent, Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III is leading Senator Edward J. Markey in the Democratic contest for Senate, according to a new Suffolk University/Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll of likely voters in the Sept. 1 primary.

“The survey found Kennedy ahead of Markey 42 percent to 36 percent, a difference that is within the poll’s margin of error. The race has tightened since Kennedy first decided to mount his bid: A Suffolk/Globe poll conducted just before Kennedy officially entered the race in September found the younger Democrat leading 42 to 28 percent over Markey in a head-to-head matchup.”

CENSORSHIP IN EUROPE … LILI BAYER: “Hungarian state media bosses told staff they need permission to report on Greta Thunberg and EU politics, and banned coverage of reports from leading human rights organizations, according to internal emails obtained by POLITICO.”

“Editors working in state media are provided with lists of sensitive topics, and any coverage related to the issues mentioned requires staff to send draft content for approval from higher up, the internal correspondence shows. In the case of Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, journalists were told they need permission before they even start writing, according to one email.

“Journalists do not know who ultimately green-lights the articles whose subject matter is on the list, said one state media employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal. When something gets rejected by the unknown decision-makers, senior editors sometimes euphemistically refer to it as reporting that ‘fell in battle,’ the employee said.” POLITICO Europe

PLAYBOOKERS

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at [email protected].

SPOTTED: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sitting in coach on a flight from LaGuardia to DCA on Sunday. … Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at the Kennedy Center for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto seated in the President’s Box on Saturday night.

ENGAGED -- Jonathan Oates, partner at Krum, Gergely & Oates, and Ashley Pratte, VP at the Herald Group, got engaged at the top of Peak 7 in Breckenridge, Colo., on Saturday. They met in April 2017. Pic … Another pic

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Kevin Madden, EVP at Arnold Ventures. What he’s been reading: “My colleague Robert Doar from the American Enterprise Institute just sent me a copy of Yual Levin’s ‘A Time to Build.’ So far it’s an interesting look at America’s institutions, ranging from government to academia to the family, and how each of them are dealing with various crises of confidence and what’s needed to rebuild and repair the sense of trust they once enjoyed with the public.” Playbook Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) is 77 … Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) is 55 … Joe Brettell, partner at Prosody Consulting … former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is 67 … former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is 65 … Liz Oberg, manager of public affairs at Business Roundtable … Jason Boxt … Brookings’ Robin Lewis … Emily Miller … Rachel Geffner … Ashley Chang, director of program influence for global power and U.S. economic opportunity at the Rockefeller Foundation and the pride of Atlanta (h/t husband Ben) … Ellie Warner … Edelman’s Joe Scannell … Dylan Colligan of Javelin … former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is 89 … Levi Russell …

… Yuri Beckelman, deputy COS for Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) … Ven Neralla, COS for Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) (h/t Chris McCannell) … Syd Terry, legislative director for Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) … Michael Hutton (h/ts Lyndon Boozer) … Ernesto Vargas … Carter Baum … Kaylee Berger … Erik Hotmire … Katherine Harris Neal … Caitlin McFall is 3-0 … NYT’s Dave Itzkoff … Eric Phillips (h/t Teresa Vilmain) … Sally Rosen, production executive for nonfiction at Endeavor Content … Kevin Benore … Adrian Uribarri … Jonathan Pelto … Gary O’Connor is 47 … B-J Certain … Eric Dolan … Grant Winter … Joe Garofoli of the S.F. Chronicle … BBC’s James Purnell

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