2020 Daily Trail Markers: Swalwell becomes first casualty of 2020 primary race
FROM THE CANDIDATES
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN: Warren announced Monday that she had raised $19.1 million over the past three months, more than triple what she brought in over the first quarter of the year, according to CBS News campaign reporter Zak Hudak. Warren's campaign has already hired over 300 staffers across the country and spent nearly $16 million this year. She currently has just under $20 million cash on hand. Read more here.
REP. ERIC SWALWELL: "Pass the torch," Swalwell told former Vice President Joe Biden two weeks ago. But if he does, Swalwell won't be around to take the handoff. The longshot 2020 candidate, who tried to make a name for himself on cable news shows as the voice of a younger political generation, dropped out of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential race Monday, reports Hudak. Swalwell ran with gun control at the center of his platform, and he was the first presidential candidate to call not only for a ban on assault-style rifles, but also for the government to buy the ones already in public hands. Read more here.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS: Harris gave perhaps the strongest defense yet of her record, telling an excited audience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Monday, "I am never going to apologize" for having prosecuted child molesters, rapists and murderers. Speaking to a crowd of roughly 1,200 people, CBS News campaign reporter Stephanie Ramirez says Harris also proclaimed that she's proud of the work she did "in saying we needed to be focused on elementary school truancy." This was in response to criticism Harris received for a California bill she championed in 2010 and 2011 that criminalized truancy.
Multiple reports say that a few parents had been jailed as a result of the bill. Harris has said that that was an "unintended consequence" of the law. Factcheck.org says "unintended consequences" is misleading — jail time was a punishment that was written into the law's penal code.
Harris began Monday by trying to woo South Carolina voters, making her first stop at a family-owned business in Marion. Harris supporter and former South Carolina lawmaker Bakari Sellers, tweeted, "Marion is one of those forgotten counties, where ppl endure generational back breaking poverty." CBS News campaign reporter LaCrai Mitchell says Marion is in the Pee Dee region and that Harris is the only candidate to date who has visited the area, according to a state campaign spokesperson.
GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Ramirez says Hickenlooper doubled-down on his message Monday during the second day of an Iowa swing that he is not leaving the 2020 presidential race. Last week, his campaign confirmed at least six departures of key and senior-level staff. CBS News campaign reporter Adam Brewster reports that one of the first questions Hickenlooper faced from Iowa Caucus Democrats was why he was not leaving the presidential race to compete for a Senate seat.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR: CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga reports that Klobuchar has grown her New Hampshire team with three new hires. Klobuchar's New Hampshire office now has seven senior staff with a total of 18 full-time members. The campaign continues to hire, with more announcements planned for later this week. New additions to the team include organizing directors Nicholas Maines and Nick Paul, and digital director Megan Carter-Stone. This announcement comes on the tail of the Minnesota lawmaker's three-day swing in the Granite State with stops in Carroll and Coos County.
STATELY COVERAGE
UP NORTH: The New Hampshire GOP released a new television ad on Sunday, according to Sganga. "We're running this ad both on the air and online to make sure that the people of New Hampshire know just how terrible the Democrats' budget proposal truly is," NHGOP chairman Stephen Stepanek said in a statement.
Separately, Sen. Cory Booker rolled out six New Hampshire endorsements from the New Hampshire State House: Reps. Anita Burroughs (Bartlett), Linn Opderbecke (Dover), Lee Walker Oxenham (Plainfield), Katherine Rogers (Concord), Jeffrey Salloway (Lee) and Bruce Tatro (Keene). These lawmakers join state Sens. Jon Morgan and David Watters in their backing of the New Jersey senator. In other endorsement news, Granite State veteran and Democratic activist Ned Helms said on Monday he is backing Biden. Helms served as New Hampshire Democratic chair and New Hampshire co-chair for President Barack Obama.
OUT WEST: The Nevada Democratic Party unveiled their plan for hosting virtual caucuses ahead of the traditional in-person caucus on February 22, 2019. The party announced in a press call that it will be partnering with Stones' Phones, a Democratic consulting firm, to host the over-the-phone caucuses on Feb. 16 and 17. CBS News Political Unit associate producer Ellee Watson reports that Nevadans can participate over a mobile line, landline, Skype or Google Hangouts. The results of the virtual caucus will be tabulated in conjunction with the in-person caucuses, and the party will announce the raw totals that night. The party is working with vendors to develop an app that will calculate the results from the four days of early voting, the virtual caucuses and the in-person caucuses.
ISSUES THAT MATTER
IRAN: In exclusive interviews with CBS News, both Klobuchar and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard weighed in on the "existential threat" Iran poses to the U.S., telling Sganga they would rejoin the United Nations Human Rights Council and renegotiate the U.S. back into the Iranian nuclear pact.
"Guess what?" Klobuchar told CBS News on Sunday, "As of today, we are less safe. Iran is blowing through the caps. They are going to start enriching uranium at a level that could lead to nuclear weapons, and it is much less safe than we were when [Mr. Trump] came in as president."
Monday morning, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand weighed in on the issue speaking to reporters after a round table in Concord, New Hampshire: "Now we have no ability to know what's happening inside Iran. And so we again might be left with only military action. And if your only response is military, then the likelihood of starting a World War unfortunately, is much higher. So It is a very precarious place for us to be in."
IN OTHER NEWS
LIFE AFTER A PRESIDENTIAL RUN: Now out of the presidential race, Swalwell begins his 2020 House reelection effort for California's 15th Congressional District with one Democratic challenger, Aisha Wahab. Wahab, the first elected Afghan-American to U.S. office, is a 31-year-old Hayward City Council member who has drawn comparisons to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez due to her similar social media use and progressive ideas, such as free college and the elimination of student debt. Wahab announced her House campaign in April and while she has left the future of her campaign open, she indicated she will continue when she retweeted Mike Gravel (another 2020 Democratic presidential candidate) who tweeted, "Ah good to see Eric Swallwell (sic) has conceded after a month of polling below Mike and is scurrying back to continue doing nothing in the House ...wouldn't it be nice if he also lost his seat to @aishabbwahab along the way?"
When asked about Wahab and other possible challengers, Swalwell said he welcomes anyone to the race and that he has not spoken her. Swalwell himself challenged Democratic incumbent Rep. Pete Stark in 2012. "I don't take anything for granted. You know, I beat a 40-year incumbent in 2012, who had taken a district for granted. And I hope the district sees that these issues that I was running on nationally were the district's issues," Swalwell said at his press conference Monday.
CBS News Political Unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro talked to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) source who said they've been in contact with Swalwell's team as of this morning, and there's "obvious space" in the Democratic caucus for him and his leadership. They also pointed to Swalwell's involvement in helping recruit Democratic freshmen candidates in 2018. The DCCC source said they haven't heard from Wahab's team, but because her campaign started in early spring when it was still an open race, consultants affiliated with her can continue and won't be affected by the committee's policy barring contracts with those supporting primary challengers.
