LAS VEGAS – Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg joined 2020 nomination rival Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota in slamming a memo by Michael Bloomberg‘s campaign that called for Buttigieg, Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden to drop out of the race so Democrats could consolidate around the former New York City mayor as the moderate alternative to populist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“If he thinks there’s gotta be one alternative to Bernie Sanders, I suppose we could find common ground on that. Maybe he should step aside and the person who has the most delegates move on,” Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Ind., told Fox News in the spin room following Wednesday night’s prime time Democratic debate in Nevada.
The Bloomberg campaign memo emphasized that “if Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar remain in the race despite having no path to appreciably collecting delegates on Super Tuesday (and beyond), they will propel Sanders to a seemingly insurmountable delegate lead by siphoning votes away from [Bloomberg].”
Sanders is soaring in the polls after basically tying Buttigieg in the Iowa caucuses and winning last week’s New Hampshire primary. Biden – the onetime unrivaled front-runner in the race – has seen his poll numbers swoon after disappointing fourth- and fifth-place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The memo was released hours before Bloomberg faced off against the Democratic White House rivals for the first time.
Taking aim at the billionaire business and media mogul during the debate, Klobuchar insisted she would not “step aside.”
“I’ve been told many times to wait my turn and to step aside, and I’m not going to do that now,” she said.
Klobuchar was asked about the memo in an interview with Fox News after the debate.
“I don’t think that’s really the way to make friends and influence people,” she said of Bloomberg’s campaign. “You’re trying to lead a party and that means bring in people with you. And I was just shocked.
“I am literally the one who said he should be on the debate state,” she added. “To see that memo this morning just made no sense.”
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