Joe Biden will win the Maine Democratic primary, according to a projection from the CNN Decision Desk.
There are 24 delegates at stake in Maine.
Who won in 2016: Bernie Sanders won the Democratic caucuses and Ted Cruz won the Republican caucuses.
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Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who dropped out of the 2020 presidential race earlier today, is addressing supporters in New York.
He said it’s now important for voters to unite to beat President Trump in November, and urged his supporters to get behind former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I will not walk away from the most important political fight of my life, and I hope you won’t walk away either,” he said. “I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it, and after yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.”
Bloomberg added that if he was able to secure the Democratic nomination, he would have been able to beat Trump in the general election.
“And you know who else knows that? Donald Trump. He’s been scared stiff of us and for good reason because every time he hit us, we hit back twice as hard,” Bloomberg said.
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District-level delegates pledged to former candidates like Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar will become very popular if the fight goes all the way to the convention.
There’s nothing that legally requires them to vote for anyone in particular, although different state parties have different rules. The national party says they should follow their conscience.
Most state-level pledged delegates have not been selected yet, so they will be reallocated among remaining candidates once they are finally selected.
The biggest decision facing Elizabeth Warren is not whether to end her campaign, but rather whether to endorse Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or neither.
“That’s the only real choice facing her now,” a Warren adviser tells CNN.
Warren is closer to Sanders — policy speaking — but those ties are strained. Some advisers believe her best path is to be considered as a vice president to Biden.
As CNN has reported, Warren is assessing her path forward. Her plan was to emerge as the alternative to Biden and Sanders — with her sights set on appearing on the debate stage in Phoenix later this month.
Those hopes are now almost certainly dashed. But Warren has to make the decision for herself: When to drop out and who — or whether — to endorse.
Joe Biden took to Twitter to thank Mike Bloomberg today after the former New York mayor dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed him.
Biden wrote in a tweet tagging Bloomberg, “I can’t thank you enough for you support.”
Biden and Bloomberg also spoke by phone this morning, a Bloomberg aide tells CNN.
Here’s Biden’s tweet:
President Trump went after Mike Bloomberg on Twitter just after the former New York mayor announced he was ending his presidential bid.
“I could have told him long ago that he didn’t have what it takes, and he would have saved himself a billion dollars,” President Trump tweeted.
Trump also added that now Bloomberg will pour money into former VP Joe Biden’s campaign “hoping to save face” and “it won’t work.”
More context: Bloomberg ended his presidential campaign today and endorsed Joe Biden, closing out a costly run that saw him spend hundreds of millions of his own money to fund his late entry bid.
“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,” he wrote in a statement.
Michael Bloomberg’s decision today to drop out of the race also means the former New York mayor won’t have to make public details about his vast media and financial-data fortune.
The former New York City mayor was due to file his first personal financial disclosure report with federal election regulators on March 20, after seeking and receiving two extensions on the filing deadline.
Now that he’s dropped out, the requirement for public disclosure also goes away.
Forbes pegs at Bloomberg’s net worth at $60 billion.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said he told President Trump that Joe Biden is “going to be tough” to beat — “but still thinks it is Trump’s to lose.”
Asked if Senate Republicans would go after Biden about Hunter Biden’s role with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, Graham said: “If you are going to run for President, and you were in charge of the Ukrainian anti-corruption campaign as Vice President, and your son is sitting on the most corrupt company in the country while you’re trying to clean up the country, yeah that will come up.”
Asked if he would investigate the matter, he said: “Ron Johnson’s doing it,” referring to the Republican senator from Wisconsin.
On the heels of a very disappointing Super Tuesday, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau sent an email today to staff, thanking everyone for their work and also saying bluntly about last night: “We fell well short of viability goals and projections, and we are disappointed in the results.”
Lau writes that “we’re still waiting for more results to come in to get a better sense of the final delegate math,” and that this 2020 race has been “volatile,” but again stresses that the team is “disappointed.”
And a key line from the email on Warren’s thinking:
“She’s going to take time right now to think through the right way to continue this fight.”
CNN is told the note went out to everyone on campaign payroll. This comes as we are also reporting this morning that Warren is now assessing her path forward with her team.
