JUDY WOODRUFF: And that
brings us to Politics Monday.

To help us dive further into
the Democratic primary, I'm
joined by Amy Walter of The Cook

Political Report and
public radio's "Politics
With Amy Walter," and
Tamara Keith of NPR,

co-host of the "NPR
Politics Podcast."

Hello to both of you.

It's almost here,
just hours on you way.

So, Amy, Joe Biden
said it himself, we
heard in our reporting
earlier. A few days ago,

the pundits were writing him
off, asking why was he still
in the race. Was he going to

get out?

Today, he is -- they are
announcing endorsements
practically by the
hour every few minutes.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political
Report: That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What
happened? We know South
Carolina. What happened?

AMY WALTER: Right.

South Carolina happened. And
for the very first time in
this race, the one thing that

has happened which hadn't
before, which is the race
finally narrowing and coalescing

around a candidate who has
been talking about electability
and his ability to be the most

electable of all the candidates.

And it's funny. As we have
gone through this process,
we have seen momentum
become so important,

because, again, electability
has been on the forefront of
voters' minds. And Joe Biden

electability sure didn't
look that set when he
was losing in Iowa and
Nevada and New Hampshire.

But to come back so resoundingly
in South Carolina, at a time
when the rest of the voters

who don't want to support
Bernie Sanders, Democratic
voters who don't want to support

Bernie Sanders, are desperate
to find someone to rally around,
it was actually the perfect

timing.

JUDY WOODRUFF: One state
did this for Joe Biden, Tam?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public
Radio: And with one state, he
surpassed the delegates that

Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg
and Elizabeth Warren had.

He's right behind Bernie
Sanders. Now, of course, Joe
Biden hasn't had the money. He

has not had the infrastructure.
And so you have Bernie Sanders
preparing to compete in

all of these Super Tuesday
states, spending a lot
of money, all of this.

And what Joe Biden has is free
media. And his campaign had
kind of been betting on this.

And a lot of us were like,
really, this is your plan?

But -- right. So they figured,
if he wins big in South
Carolina, that will give him

a boost. People will be talking
about him. Now they're keeping
it going with these endorsements

rolling in, trying to create
this air of inevitability,
like he's the one.

There's the Bernie Sanders'
lane, and then there's Joe
Biden. And that's particularly

important in trying to convince
people who are maybe considering
voting for Michael Bloomberg

to say, OK, let's
just consolidate this.
Let's go for Joe Biden.

Now, of course, as we
also saw, a lot of people
have voted already.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, but, Amy,
again, Tom Steyer, dropped out,
then Pete Buttigieg, and then

today Amy Klobuchar.

All their votes, do they
absolutely go to Joe Biden?
I mean, what happens?

AMY WALTER: Absolutely
not. And that's -- right.
We can't assume that.

(LAUGHTER)

AMY WALTER: But we do know that
those folks, Tom Steyer aside,
that, especially with Pete

Buttigieg and Amy
Klobuchar, they're in
this part of the party,
or they represented a part

of the party that really was
focused on this electability.

Who's a candidate that we can
support who we think is going
to beat Donald Trump who's

not named Bernie Sanders? We're
not interested in supporting
somebody like Bernie Sanders.

So that support could
also go to Elizabeth
Warren. So, there's not...

JUDY WOODRUFF: Who
is still in the race.

AMY WALTER: Who is
still in the race.

And Tam makes this point about
Michael Bloomberg. And I think
that's really important as we

go into Super Tuesday. The
biggest hurdles still for Joe
Biden, the early vote that we

have talked about and that Amna
talked about in California,
and then Michael Bloomberg.

He is still -- he's spent a
ton of money. He's still on the
ballot, obviously, in states

like California, Texas,
North Carolina that
have a lot of delegates.

And every delegate he pulls,
he's pulling from Joe Biden.
He does especially well or

has been in the polling among
African-American voters. That
is obviously what got Joe Biden

his success in South Carolina.

So -- but Michael Bloomberg
needs to do less well than he
was doing in the polls before

South Carolina in order for
Biden to really get the sort
of coalescing that he wants to

show with this endorsement
by Amy Klobuchar
and Pete Buttigieg.

TAMARA KEITH: And I think an
important thing to say about
polling right now is that polls

are a snapshot of a moment in
time, and things are changing
very quickly right now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They are.

TAMARA KEITH: For so long,
this race felt like it wasn't
moving very quickly, that there

were so many candidates.

All of a sudden, there are not
so many candidates, and a poll
that was done a week ago or 48

hours ago is not going
to reflect the reality
on the ground now.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And so people
-- voters -- you heard it in
both of these reports, but with

Amna especially in California,
where voters who are wrestling
with this, now the moment

has come.

AMY WALTER: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They
have to make a decision.

AMY WALTER: They have been
desperate for so long. They have
been saying to us for so long,

just tell me which candidate
can beat Donald Trump.

And, in fact, I think we got to
this place where we are today
because Democrats, Democratic

voters, Democratic candidates
who weren't named Bernie
Sanders were so obsessed with

this question of electability,
that voters themselves got
wrapped around this, right?

How many voters did you talk
to who said, I mean, I like
this candidate, but can they

win in Wisconsin? And do you
think they will do well in
enough battleground states?

JUDY WOODRUFF: Exactly.

AMY WALTER: And I don't
know against Trump. I saw
them on the debate stage.

And so that issue became
so -- it was -- it became
paralyzing for so many voters.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For sure.

AMY WALTER: And so they were
dispersing their votes among a
whole bunch of people, instead

of just focusing on, here's
the candidate we think is
the most electable. I may not

love this person,
but they can win.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I was still
hearing it from Virginia voters
in Virginia. I was out able

to talk to some of them
over the weekend, Tam.

But just quickly, on Mike
Bloomberg -- and I did see him
Saturday morning in Virginia.

Some of the rationale, if
not the main rationale,
for his candidacy was,
Joe Biden may not make

it.

AMY WALTER: Right.

TAMARA KEITH: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And so
now, with Biden having
momentum, what happens?

TAMARA KEITH: It's a big,
giant, open question.

You know, he -- Michael
Bloomberg has spent more money
than God. I mean, he has spent

- - he has spent more
money certainly than
Barack Obama spent in his
entire 2012 reelection.

And it's not clear yet what
it's going to buy. Is he
going to be like a Tom Steyer,

who people seem interested in,
and then the support actually
melts away when it comes

time to voting, or is he
going to get a certain
amount of support?

Will he be viable in some
states? But, like, the thing is,
do you spend that much money,

do you run that hard, do you
-- is your whole strategy, I'm
going to go out on Super Tuesday

and show them? Does that become
-- like, what if you only are
just viable in a few states

and you aren't winning states?

How long can you maintain that?

JUDY WOODRUFF: And there is
Bernie Sanders, Amy, who has
a very loyal -- and, again, I

was able to see him
over the weekend.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Talk about an
enthusiastic crowd. Thousands
were out, Springfield, Virginia.

It doesn't get any...

(CROSSTALK)

AMY WALTER: That's
what been fascinating.

As I said, with this focus on
-- so much of the field, so
many of the voters focused on

electability, what so many
candidates were doing was
running not to lose, not to lose

to Donald Trump.

Bernie Sanders I saw as the
only candidate who was running
to win, right? He didn't care

about all these other
things that people were
wrapping themselves
around. He has been very

committed to his message, to
his ideology, to his narrative
throughout this campaign.

It hasn't budged.
It hasn't changed.

So there is an attractiveness
to that. That's what a lot of
voters are attracted to. And

he was able to coalesce those
voters. He hasn't lost them, in
the way that the ones who were

focused on electability have
been diverse - - dispersed.

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Excuse me.

As we have been saying,
Tam, he does seem - -
appear to be ahead in
the polls in California.

TAMARA KEITH: Way ahead.

JUDY WOODRUFF: He's supposed
to do well in Texas.

That's one reason Joe Biden
is having this mega-event
tonight with endorsements.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

TAMARA KEITH: Mega-rally.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But he
could end up doing -- I
mean, he could either end
up cleaning up tomorrow

or looking less than inevitable.

TAMARA KEITH: Absolutely.
Those are the options.
And there's some muddle
in between that could

happen.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In between.

AMY WALTER: But one of
the things that I will
be looking to see is,
will some of these states

be more like Nevada, where he
won super handily, won -- he
won African-American voters, he

won Latino voters especially
-- or will some of these states
be more like South Carolina,

where Joe Biden was able
to really consolidate the
African-American support?

The question is, Bernie Sanders
has been able to expand his
base well beyond what it was

in 2016. Does that hold
up in every state or
only some of the states?

AMY WALTER: Right. And Nevada,
of course, was a caucus. The
rest of these are primaries.

Joe Biden, yes, did very
well among African-American
voters and among white
voters in South Carolina,

but South Carolina doesn't look
even, as you well know, like
North Carolina or Virginia.

TAMARA KEITH: Right.

AMY WALTER: The African-American
population that votes in
South Carolina is bigger than

any other state that's going
to vote on Super Tuesday, maybe
with the exception of Alabama.

But the -- California and Texas,
the two states with the most
delegates, they also have a

tremendously large Latino
population. That's where Bernie
Sanders has also done very well,

Joe Biden not so well.

JUDY WOODRUFF:
Targeting those voters.

AMY WALTER: That's right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we can't
wait. The voters get their say,
a lot of them -- what is it,

a third of the delegates
being chosen by tomorrow.

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: We can't wait.

Tamara Keith, Amy
Walter, thank you both.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.

AMY WALTER: You're
welcome, Judy.