2020 Daily Trail Markers: Kamala Harris shuts down field offices in New Hampshire
CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga has learned that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is cutting her entire field team in New Hampshire and all three field offices in the Granite State, according to campaign aides. The number of staff cuts is in the "double digits," with more than half of her New Hampshire staff being laid off.
According to a campaign spokesperson, "a handful of staffers will run a scaled-down campaign out of the Manchester headquarters." The field offices in Portsmouth, Manchester and Keene will be closed.
"Senator Harris and this team set out with one goal – to win the nomination and defeat Donald Trump in 2020," Nate Evans, communications director for Harris' New Hampshire campaign said in a statement. "To do so, the campaign has made a strategic decision to realign resources and go all-in on Iowa, resulting in office closures and staff realignments and reductions in New Hampshire. The campaign will continue to have a staff presence in New Hampshire but the focus is and will continue to be on Iowa."
Read the full story here.
Beto O'Rourke ends campaign
The former El Paso congressman announced on Medium that he's ending his presidential campaign, CBS News campaign reporter Tim Perry and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe report.
"Though it is difficult to accept, it is clear to me now that this campaign does not have the means to move forward successfully," O'Rourke wrote. "My service to the country will not be as a candidate or as the nominee."
He went on to say that even though he's suspending his campaign, he'll "work to ensure that the Democratic nominee is successful in defeating Donald Trump in 2020."
Outside the arena hosting tonight's major Democratic Party event in Des Moines, O'Rourke supporters were still gathered at a spot where the candidate planned to address them, CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe reports.
Before his arrival, some volunteers began pulling lawn signs out of the ground. When a CBS News team converged to document the scene, a O'Rourke campaign staffer approached and asked that we stop and that we be "respectful" because the volunteers "are very vulnerable right now."
CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga reports that New Hampshire campaign officials told CBS News just last week that they felt the campaign would continue beyond the debates even if O'Rourke did not meet the thresholds.
Warren's plan to fund "Medicare for All" without raising taxes on middle class
Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she said would fund her universal health care plan known as "Medicare for All" without raising taxes on middle class Americans "by one penny," seeking to put to rest questions about how she'd pay for her signature domestic proposal, report CBS News campaign reporter Zak Hudak and CBS News political correspondent Ed O'Keefe.
Warren's plan runs 20 pages and is supported by a group of economists and health care experts consulted in advance of its release. The proposal not only would lower the medical costs for American families by $11 trillion over 10 years, but also slightly lower the total cost the country is projected to spend on health care over the same period by $7 trillion, according to those experts, some of whom led health care policy for the Obama administration.
The Urban Institute, a liberal think tank, estimated last month that it would cost $34 trillion additional to fund Medicare for All for 10 years. Through a series of reforms, public funding reallocations and greater efficiency, the experts enlisted by Warren to examine her plan say she could bring the total additional cost down to just over $20 trillion.
Warren then says she would bring in just under $9 trillion over 10 years by diverting the funds employers pay to private health care plans to the government. To compensate for the remaining $11 trillion, Warren has a set of proposals, including a county-by-county tax on foreign earnings of 35 percent. Warren, who has already proposed a 3 percent wealth tax on fortunes over $1 billion, would increase it to 6 percent to bring in an additional $1 trillion for the health care plan.
CBS News campaign reporter Bo Erickson reports that former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign issued a statement calling the plan "mathematical gymnastics," adding, "it's impossible to pay for Medicare for All without middle class tax increases."
Read more here.
FROM THE CANDIDATES
DONALD TRUMP
The president is making his second trip to Tupelo, Mississippi, since assuming office, reports CBS News associate producer Eleanor Watson. The president visited after the midterms to rally support for Republican Senator Cindy-Hyde Smith who was forced into a runoff for the state's U.S. Senate seat against Democrat Mike Espy after neither candidate took more than 50 percent in the four-way special election. Hyde-Smith ended up defeating Espy 54 to 46 percent.
This year, the president is here to support Lieutenant Governor Tate Reeves who is competing in Tuesday's gubernatorial election against the state Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat. Virginia Mitchell, who stood in line Friday afternoon outside the BancorpSouth Arena where the president will hold his rally told CBS News that the race would be close if Reeves did not have the support of the president. Mr. Trump's presence "made a difference in Hyde-Smith's election so it'll make a difference here too," she said.
According to CBS News broadcast associate Aaron Navarro, the rally will be in in a county where Reeves lost narrowly in his Republican runoff with former state Supreme Court Justice chief justice Bill Waller.
EARLY STATES
UP NORTH
Senator Bernie Sanders campaign announced Friday it has 90 staff members and 13 field offices in New Hampshire, CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga notes.
This puts Sanders' camp well beyond all other campaigns in New Hampshire, including that of Senator Elizabeth Warren. Sanders had a late start here in New Hampshire, building out his team over the past couple of months. In August, Bernie Sanders' campaign manager Faiz Shakir doubled down on the campaign's plan to increase Granite State staffing over time.
"We could afford, over a period of time, to allow a lesser investment and then increase that investment over time," Shakir told CBS News. "So by the end of this, I promise you, if we aren't the candidate with the most staff in the most volunteers, I will be stunned."
OUT WEST
Though far from the fanfare of candidates filing for the New Hampshire primary, Sanders today announced that his campaign has officially filed for the Nevada caucuses in February. The Nevada State Democratic Party confirmed to CBS News campaign reporter Alex Tin that the Vermont senator joins Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Tom Steyer in providing the necessary documents to contend in the "first in the West" contest.
Buttigieg was the first to finalize his candidacy for the Nevada caucuses, filing on stage at a state party event in September. "We have grown to a team of more than 70 staffers since we started in April, each of us dedicated to bringing our movement to life and cultivating our massive army of volunteers to help us win the caucuses in February," Sarah Michelsen, the Nevada state director for the Sanders campaign, said in a statement.
DOWN SOUTH
While Andrew Yang hasn't spent nearly as much time in South Carolina as some of his Democratic competitors, the Yang operation in the Palmetto State has almost doubled in paid staff in the past few weeks. It's part of a broader expansion the Yang campaign has undertaken in recent months, due in large part to the success of its online fundraising and organizational efforts that predate its physical campaign presence. Campaign reporters Ben Mitchell and LaCrai Mitchell explore how the Yang campaign is using digital outreach to mobilize ground game and attract voters who have never been involved in politics until now.
Read more here.
GUBERNATORIAL RACES
PENCE EFFECT
Vice President Mike Pence hit the campaign trail in Southeast Kentucky with Governor Matt Bevin in hopes of energizing voters in a state President Trump won by 30 points in 2016. Trump is even more popular in Laurel County, where he received more than 82 percent of the vote and where Pence and Bevin held a Get Out the Vote rally with others on the GOP ticket. "To those with the national press corps, this is Trump country — let there be no doubt about it," Bevin said at the rally.
In his own primary in May, Bevin lost a lot of these southeastern Kentucky counties to Republican State Representative Robert Goforth, who got 61 percent of Laurel County.
Krissie Reffner, who works in London, Kentucky, told CBS News broadcast associate Aaron Navarro that "as a Republican, we should go out and support our Republican governor," but she thinks it's going to be a close race between him and Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear. At the rally, Bevin said he's not trying to win by a close margin: "I want to win by 10 or 12 percent." Recent polls have either shown Beshear with a lead, or tied with Bevin.
ELECTION RULES
Navarro reports that in the backdrop of Mr. Trump's appearance in Mississippi, an opinion by a state federal court expressed "grave concern" with the state's electoral vote rule. Currently, the state law is that if a gubernatorial candidate has not received more than 50 percent of the vote, then the Mississippi State House will pick the governor. It's a potentially significant opinion, with Republicans currently holding the State House and polls showing both Reeves and Democrat candidate Attorney General Jim Hood neck-and-neck. The court did not issue a pre-election stoppage, but did signal it could step in if the Jim Crow-era rule is activated for next week's election.
LINKS
CBSN
1. Kamala Harris to restructure campaign as funding dwindles/Tim Perry
2. Democratic candidates speak out after Trump receives award at HBCU justice forum/ LaCrai Mitchell
3. Senator Bernie Sanders files for the New Hampshire primary/Cara Korte
4. Senator Bernie Sanders rolls out new marijuana legalization policy/Cara Korte
DOT COM
1. Warren says she can fund "Medicare for All" without raising middle class taxes / Zak Hudak & Ed O'Keefe
2. Bernie Sanders compares the ultra-wealthy to drug addicts: "I need more, more, more"/ Cara Korte
3. In South Carolina, Andrew Yang maximizes digital reach to mobilize ground game /Ben Mitchell and LaCrai Mitchell
