Joe Biden takes aim at Pete Buttigieg after 'gut punch' in Iowa
Democratic presidential candidates campaign in New Hampshire ahead of the Granite State's first-in-the-nation primary; Peter Doocy reports from Manchester.
MANCHESTER, N.H. – Joe Biden’s campaign says expect to see the former vice president draw “a really clear contrast” with his two top rivals for the Democratic presidential race at Friday night’s nomination debate.
The primetime showdown, at Saint Anselm College just outside New Hampshire’s largest city, is the last time the top seven polling candidates will face off on the same stage before Tuesday’s primary, which is the first in the race for the White House.
Biden finished a disappointing fourth in Iowa – far behind Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. He was even edged out by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as the final results from Iowa tricked in three days late, due to a reporting debacle by the Iowa Democratic Party.
“I think you’re going to see Vice President Biden on the debate stage tonight a really clear contrast with the vision that somebody like Sen. Sanders is offering and a clear contrast with the vision that somebody like Mayor Pete is offering,” a senior Biden official told Fox News’ Madeleine Rivera and other reporters on a conference call hours before the debate.
The campaign emphasized that their candidate would emphasize health care and spotlight his electability arguments, adding, “You’re going to hear the vice president make a clear, concise case for his experience.”
On Wednesday, Biden turned up the volume in his attacks on both Sanders and Buttigieg as he admitted he “a took gut punch in Iowa.”
BIDEN'S POOR IOWA FINISH UPS THE STAKES FOR HIM IN NH
Biden may be under the most pressure of any of the White House contenders on the stage to produce a strong performance.
Former Vice President Joe Biden takes selfies with supporters during a campaign event in Somersworth, NH on Feb. 5, 2020
“I think there’s a lot on the line for Joe Biden tonight,” noted New Hampshire Institute of Politics executive director Neil Levesque. “When you’re competing now for donors and the expectation that you’re going to go into Super Tuesday and compete with people like Bloomberg, I think there’s a lot one particularly on Tuesday but especially with this debate tonight.”
New Hampshire Young Democrats president Lucas Meyer says he’s expecting “this to be a sharper debate with more pointed exchanges. I think Sen. Warren certainly has a lot to gain in this debate. I’m expecting an aggressive performance from her tonight.
"It’s going to be interesting to see if the folks go on the attack,” he emphasized. And he noted that “no one was gone after Sanders aggressively yet.”
Sharing the debate stage with Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg are Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, billionaire environmental and progressive advocate Tom Steyer and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
Biden’s team says no campaign shakeup with Dunn’s promotion
Biden senior aides say that the addition of longtime advisor and veteran Democratic strategist Anita Dunn “does not represent some dramatic shift in responsibilities.”
Pushing back against headlines that called the move a "shakeup,” aides told reporters that “this is not an overhaul of our campaign structure. It’s not even frankly a dramatically different role for her."
Dunn, a partner at the political advertising and consulting giant SKDKnickerbocker, has been a top surrogate for Biden since he announced his candidacy last April. She served in senior roles in President Barack Obama’s White House and on his two presidential campaigns. She’s also a veteran of the Democratic White House campaigns of former Vice President Al Gore and Sens. Tom Daschle and Bill Bradley.
The internal announcement on Dunn came after Biden’s lackluster finish in Iowa and after the latest polls in New Hampshire indicated Biden fading to the low double digits.
“We took our lumps in Iowa and we wanted to adjust and make some changes to ensure that we are putting forward our best effort of the campaign as we move on,” a campaign adviser admitted.
But a campaign official emphasized, “I understand the tendency of everybody to read into a personnel change announced today, but I would really encourage people not to over crank on that. Everybody knows that Anita Dunn has a senior leadership role in our campaign since the day we launched. What today’s news reflects is that we’re adding additional talent at the top of our campaign to ensure we’re ready as we move into the next phase.”
The campaign also pushed back against a narrative that another poor showing in New Hampshire could seriously impair their fundraising efforts.
“We actually this week have had the single best week since launch that we’ve had in terms of online fundraising. That includes post-Iowa,” a campaign adviser touted. “We are not at all discouraged by what we’re seeing in terms of money coming in and we believe that we have the resources we need to compete and continue on.”
The campaign downplayed the results in Iowa, saying, “We have to remember that Iowa is one very small microcosm in a much broader Democratic electorate.”
And they also seemed to minimize the importance of New Hampshire, highlighting that “the campaign has had a very clear strategy from the day we got into the race. We have articulated that we believe for us the pathway to the nomination runs in particular through Nevada, South Carolina, Super Tuesday, through states that have a more diverse electorate, where Vice President Biden has a tremendous amount of support.”
“We are very confident that when we get to a more diverse electorate, that we will continue to see traction and that we will continue to be competitive,” they added.
But a senior campaign aide told Fox News, “We’re not writing off New Hampshire, we’re actively competing here in New Hampshire and we’re going to be competitive.”
Sanders takes aim at Buttigieg’s big bucks donors as Wall Street gives him closer look
With his lead shrinking in the latest New Hampshire polls, Sanders on Friday for the first time took aim at Buttigieg, whose support in the state has soared this week coming out of Iowa.
The populist senator from Vermont – who tops the Democratic primary race for campaign cash thanks to a massive infusion of small-dollar grassroots donations – criticized the former South Bend, Ind., mayor’s financial support from top-dollar contributors as he headlined the famed "Politics and Eggs" speaking series in the state that holds the first primary in the White House race.
SANDERS SLAMS BUTTIGIEG OVER 'BILLIONAIRE DONORS'
Meanwhile, multiple finance sources told Fox News' Gillian Turner that Wall Street financiers are considering throwing more weight behind Buttigieg’s candidacy after what they called his surprise upset in Iowa, where the 38-year-old candidate ended in a virtual tie with Sanders.
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