Photo: Stephen ElliottFor billionaire and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, the path to the Democratic nomination has always gone through states whose primaries have traditionally been overlooked.

In Tennessee, that meant hiring more than 40 staffers, opening seven brick-and-mortar offices and filling local airwaves with millions of dollars’ worth of advertising — the largest investment in the state by a presidential candidate anyone can remember. Despite the unprecedented investment in the primary campaign, Bloomberg’s first chance at winning delegates will come on March 3 — Super Tuesday — when Tennessee will join more than a dozen other states at the polls.

Bloomberg’s states director Dan Kanninen said in a call with reporters on Monday that Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma “are crucial to winning the nomination, but aren’t the states that most people think about when they think about Super Tuesday.”

“Mike has made his presence felt in these states,” Kanninen added, citing Bloomberg’s multiple stops in Tennessee.

With early contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada now in the rearview mirror, Bloomberg’s well-funded operation won’t have Tennessee largely to itself anymore. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who until Bloomberg entered the race had the most robust campaign operation in Tennessee, is sending in reinforcements, with actor and Tennessean Ashley Judd set to campaign for the Democratic candidate in the days before Super Tuesday.

Like Warren, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg redeployed Iowa staffers to Tennessee, but the top-two finisher in both Iowa and New Hampshire is mostly relying on volunteers in Tennessee. Buttigieg, Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden are among the candidates relying on prominent Tennessee surrogates in the waning days of the campaign. Buttigieg counts Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro on his team; Biden has Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Raumesh Akbari and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris campaigning for him; and Bloomberg secured the support of Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean.



Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won Nevada and New Hampshire and finished in a virtual tie for first in Iowa, is also heavily relying on volunteer efforts in Tennessee, though he is one of the few candidates joining Bloomberg on network airwaves in the state. His wife, Jane, is visiting Nashville on Wednesday for a rally at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church.



Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar is another late entrant on local television, making a five-figure ad buy on Nashville-area network TV in recent days. Her third-place finish in New Hampshire led to a fundraising boon, which she aims to continue later this week with a Friday fundraiser in Nashville, according to an invitation obtained by the Scene. Klobuchar’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for further information about the visit, including whether she would hold any public events locally.

Biden was long viewed as a favorite to win in Tennessee and other similarly situated states. But disappointing results in the early states, the rise of Bloomberg and the prospect of a come-from-behind Sanders win in South Carolina on Saturday have some supporters nervous. (One, Chattanooga Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, flipped his endorsement from Biden to Bloomberg.)

But on the Bloomberg team call with reporters, Biden was not a factor. Instead, Kanninen focused on Sanders, whose nomination the Bloomberg staffer said “would be a catastrophe.”