MODERATE DEMOCRATS SEARCH for alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders as he rises in the polls. Some party officials and independent expenditure groups focused on down-ballot races worry he could arrest the Democratic suburban expansion. The nightmare scenario involves falling short in the bet that Sanders’s populist credentials can win back the Rust Belt, while also losing some of the front-line suburban districts won by Democrats in 2018. Sanders’s rivals have been playing up their ability to win there: “I bring the receipts of bringing in people in the suburbs,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar said this week, while former Vice President Joe Biden noted his success campaigning for suburban candidates in the 2018 midterms.

But Sanders has received the most donations from suburban women of any Democratic candidate, according to a November 2019 analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Sanders’s campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The party’s donor class continues to search for their ideal candidate. Dozens of corporate lawyers from across the country gathered in Manhattan earlier this week in support of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign. The lawyers, many of whom previously supported Sen. Kamala Harris, weren’t there to donate. Instead, they were there to learn more about Bloomberg’s candidacy, talk about why they support him and strategize how to get the word out to their colleagues.

Following a Republican win in a special state legislature election in suburban Houston, GOP strategist Karl Rove said a playbook was emerging for 2020: “A focus on bread-and-butter suburban issues and a focus on what national Democrats are doing.”

WILD WEST: West Virginia makes a pitch to conservative counties in Virginia to switch states. “If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia,” West Virginia GOP Gov. Jim Justice said at a Tuesday press conference with evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. He noted that West Virginia had become a state because Virginia’s government was “out of touch” with the values of its people during the Civil War era.