Democratic Debate #1 June 2019

I think Biden is going down.
Maybe Pete, too.
Kamala might dodge bullets because of the those disasters.

Williamson and Swalwell and Gillibrand should be confurmed as not ready for prime time tonight.

BALTIMORE (AP) — Two more members of the Congressional Black Caucus are backing Kamala Harris's bid for the presidency: Reps. Bobby Rush of Illinois and Frederica Wilson of Florida.

Endorsements from the caucus, which counts more than 50 members, could be influential in the Democratic presidential primary. With these two new supporters, Harris now has six endorsements from the CBC.

Rush has been sharply critical of former Vice President Joe Biden in the wake of comments in which he recalled working alongside two segregationist Southern senators. Rush told Politico that Biden, another Democratic presidential candidate, was "wholly out of touch and woefully ignorant of the nuances of the black American experience." Rush will serve as Harris' Illinois campaign co-chair.

Rush said Harris was "the only candidate prepared to fight for all Americans against a Trump Administration that has left them behind" and that she is a "once-in-a-lifetime leader" who "exemplifies what global leadership is all about."

Harris and Biden clashed during the first Democratic primary debate after Harris, who is black, directly challenged Biden over his history of opposing school integration through federally ordered busing. Harris said Biden's recollections of working with the two senators were hurtful.

Harris's campaign announced on Saturday that she had raised $2 million in the first 24 hours following the start of Thursday's debate. Aides to her campaign said she received donations from 63,277 people, and that 58 percent of those donors had not contributed to her campaign before.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) surged into second place following last week's Democratic presidential debates, cutting deep into former Vice President Joe Biden's long-held lead in the primary contest, according to a national poll released Tuesday.

Harris soared to 20 percent in the Quinnipiac University survey, while Biden fell to 22 percent among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters.That's a significant change from a Quinnipiac poll released last month that showed Biden leading the pack with 30 percent and Harris lingering in a distant fourth place with 7 percent support.

The Quinnipiac survey is the latest in recent days to show Harris riding a wave of new support following her standout performance in Thursday's debate.

A CNN/SSRS poll released Monday showed the California senator jumping into second place with 17 percent support. Likewise, a Suffolk University Iowa poll found Harris surging into second in the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state.

The latest poll also shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pulling ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 14 percent and 13 percent respectively. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in with 4 percent support in the survey.

Among respondents who said they watched last week's debates, 29 percent said they would most likely vote for Harris in the primary, the most of any candidate, while 18 percent said Biden was their top choice, the same percentage as those who picked Warren.

The polling data suggests that Harris's performance, which featured a sharp confrontation with Biden, during last week's debate has given her campaign a crucial bump as the primary race begins to heat up.

Biden, on the other hand, has seen his political stock fall in recent days following a wobbly debate performance in which he found himself repeatedly fending off criticism for his past opposition to federally mandated school busing, as well as for his recent comments about working with segregationists during his early years in the Senate.

It was Harris, however, who delivered the most pointed attack on Biden over the busing issue, recalling on the debate stage how she was bussed to a different school as a child.

"There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me," Harris said, addressing Biden directly.

The Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday showed Harris gaining support among black voters, trailing only 4 points behind Biden's 31 percent.

It's unclear if Harris will be able to maintain her momentum in the race. Polls provide brief snapshots of political races, and voting in the Democratic primary contest does not begin for another seven months.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters polled by Quinnipiac also said they prefer Warren's policy proposals more so than those of other candidates. Asked which candidate has the best policy ideas, 31 percent of respondents pointed to Warren, while 18 percent picked Sanders. Biden came in at 11 percent and Harris at 8 percent.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 554 Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters from June 28-July 1. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris picked up another endorsement Wednesday from a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, where she is competing for support with former Vice President Joe Biden.

Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes posted an op-ed in Essence on Wednesday ahead of the magazine's annual gathering this weekend in New Orleans. Hayes cited Harris' story of being bused as a young girl in Berkeley, California, which the California Democrat spoke about in last week's Democratic presidential debate.

"In that moment, I knew exactly what she was talking about — she was talking about access to opportunity that would otherwise change the trajectory of her life," Hayes said. "That resonated with me. That was me."

Hayes was among the wave of freshman women, particularly women of color, who swept into Congress during the 2018 midterms. Hayes is the seventh member of the Congressional Black Caucus to endorse Harris. Biden has support from five CBC members.

Hundreds of thousands of black women are expected to attend the Essence Festival and several 2020 hopefuls — including Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Beto O' Rourke and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg — will address them.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) saw a massive fundraising surge in the last three months, lending further credence to her status as a frontrunner among a large 2020 presidential field.

In an email shared with supporters on Monday afternoon, Warren's campaign manager Roger Lau said that in the second quarter of the year, the Massachusetts Democrat raised more than $19.1 million from more than 384,000 people making more than 683,000 donations. The average contribution was $28 and, according to the campaign, more than 80 percent of second-quarter donors were first-time givers. The campaign said they now have $19.7 million cash on-hand.

That haul represents an enormous increase from Warren’s first-quarter fundraising—which, early on, raised doubts about whether her policy-centric campaign would resonate with voters. In the first quarter, Warren’s campaign said she raised more than $6 million, somewhat quieting those early concerns, especially as more than $1.4 million of that came in during the last week of the quarter.

Although, simultaneously, the campaign spent $5.2 million, in part on building up a large staffing operation in the early voting states. That hasn’t tapered off at all as Warren’s operation boasts over 300 staffers with 60 percent working in the four early-voting states.

During the second quarter, the Warren campaign had several big moments that seemingly contributed to both her polling and fundraising upswings: The senator called for impeachment early on, following Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report; introduced her student debt cancellation plan; and publicly turned down a Fox News town hall as other Democrats chose to participate on the network.

The senator’s haul was accomplished after swearing off high-dollar fundraisers, a move her campaign has said allows her to focus on policy rollouts and near-constant grassroots events throughout the country.

Warren’s second-quarter tally puts her behind former Vice President Joe Biden, who recently announced raising $21.5 million since his late April launch, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who announced raising $24.8 million—the largest of the field so far.

But Warren’s second-quarter numbers beat out both Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), another competitor who has rejected high-dollar fundraisers, and Kamala Harris (D-CA), whose performance in the first Democratic debate has helped propel her poll numbers upward.

Harris’ campaign recently said that she brought in nearly $12 million during the second quarter, with more than $2 million coming in the 24 hours after her strong debate performance. Warren's campaign did not share the amount of her total she earned following her debate performance on the first night of the back-to-back event.

Sanders raised $18 million in the last three months from nearly one million individual contributions.

Seeming to acknowledge that Warren narrowly beat Sanders in her fundraising total, Lau wrote in the email: “To sum it up: We raised more money than any other 100% grassroots-funded campaign. That’s big. You sent a message that Elizabeth’s vision for the future is worth fighting for. And you showed the rich and powerful that change is coming — sooner than they think.”