The Obama administration said Monday that it was "surprised" to learn
that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had canceled a planned
visit to Washington later this month, and denied an Israeli media report
that claimed the White House was unable to arrange a meeting between
President Obama and Netanyahu.
Netanyahu's visit had been planned to coincide with
the American-Israel Political Affairs Committee's annual conference. The
White House said Israel had proposed for the two leaders to meet on
either March 17 or 18 and the U.S. had offered to meet on March 18.
"We were surprised to first learn via media reports
that the Prime Minister, rather than accept our invitation, opted to
cancel his visit," National Security Council spokesman Ned Price told
reporters Monday. "Reports that we were not able to accommodate the
Prime Minister's schedule are false."
A report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited sources close to Netanyahu who claimed "no appropriate time" could be found to hold the meeting.
The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said Tuesday that
Israel's ambassador to the U.S. informed the White House last week
there was a "good chance" Netanyahu would not make the trip.
An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly,
told the Associated Press Netanyahu wanted to avoid meetings with
presidential candidates.
The unusually pointed pushback from the White House
was the latest signal of ongoing tensions between the U.S. and its
closest Mideast ally, which have never fully recovered since Obama
incensed Netanyahu's government by pursuing and then enacting a nuclear
deal with Iran. The flare-up comes just days before Vice President Joe
Biden is set to meet with Netanyahu during a visit to Jerusalem.
This isn't the first time Obama had been caught off
guard by Netanyahu's travel plans. Last year, the White House accused
Netanyahu of a breach of longstanding diplomatic protocol when he
announced plans to speak to a joint session of Congress without
consulting or notifying the president. Netanyahu used that speech to
implore U.S. lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear deal, which Israel
sees as emboldening its archenemy.
Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie
Sanders laid out some of their key differences Monday in a Fox News
Channel town hall event in Michigan -- including Clinton springing a
surprise alternative to Sanders' millennial-friendly,
free-college-tuition plan.
Please click here to watch the Democratic Town Hall Live
Sanders opened by defending his auto-bailout vote, which Clinton hit him on during their debate the night before.
“What I did not vote for was the bailout of Wall
Street. … She did vote for that,” Sanders said, referring to Clinton’s
time as a New York senator.
The front-running Clinton and the Vermont senator
made their cases in Detroit on the eve of Michigan’s Democratic and
Republican presidential primaries.
Most polls show Clinton with a double-digit lead in
Michigan, as she enters the primary with 1,130 delegates, compared to
499 for Sanders. Either needs 2,383 delegates to win the party
nomination. The two will also compete in the Mississippi Democratic
primary Tuesday.
Sanders on Monday night also hammered his message of economic equality and prosperity.
“There is no candidate in this race who has talked
more about poverty than I have,” he said. “In the richest country in the
history of the world, we have more income and wealth inequality than
any other major country. We have too many people living in poverty. We
have got to change our national priorities.”
He also repeated his calls for helping roughly 29
million Americans without health care, arguing the problem is in part
the result of pharmaceutical companies gouging the country.
“We have many more (Americans) who are underinsured,”
Sanders said. “And we are getting ripped off big time by the
pharmaceutical industry, which are charging us the highest prices in the
world.”
Clinton, meanwhile, was asked at the outset of the
event about the ongoing classified email investigation being conducted
by the FBI, claiming once again that she was not notified that she is a
subject of that investigation.
“Absolutely true,” Clinton responded to the question by Fox News’ “Special Report” host Bret Baier.
Clinton also said neither she nor her lawyers have
been informed that any members of her staff or former staff are targets
of the investigation, which focuses on her use of a private email server
while secretary of state.
Clinton also stood by decision, as part of the Obama
administration, to remove Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. But
she acknowledged the “deeply regrettable” aftermath, in which the
Islamic State terror group has flourished in parts of that country.
“If there had not been that intervention … we would be looking at something much more resembling Syria now,” Clinton said.
She also argued that the United States and its allies
saw more turmoil in “leaving a dictator in place,” like Russia has done
with Syrian leader Bashar al Assad. And she said the Libyan people have
since had two fair elections to "get themselves a better future."
Clinton also used the forum to introduce her answer
to Sanders’ popular free-tuition college proposal, unveiling the
outlines of a plan in which students will no longer have to borrow money
to attend a public college or university.
She said the New College Compact plan would also help with non-tuition costs.
“It is absolutely imperative that we make college affordable,” Clinton said.
Both candidates also explained their position on
abortion, amid continuing debate about stopping the procedure after five
months of pregnancy, with the exceptions for the life and health of the
mother and baby.
“I am very strongly pro-choice,” Sanders said. “That is a decision to be made by the woman, her physician and her family.”
Clinton said she objects to the recent effort in Congress to pass a law saying no such exceptions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
“Because although these (exceptions) are rare, they sometimes arise in the most complex, difficult medical situation,” she said.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump look to rebound from weekend
setbacks with victories in Tuesday's Michigan primary, the first big
industrial state to be contested in the 2016 presidential race.
Squeezed between high-profile Super Tuesday and
high-stakes primaries next week in Florida and Ohio, Tuesday's contests
are unlikely to dramatically reshape either party's primaries. But with
150 Republican and 179 Democratic delegates at stake, the races offer an
opportunity for the front-runners to pad leads and rivals to catch up.
In addition to Michigan's primaries, both parties
will hold their primary in Mississippi Tuesday, with Republicans also
caucusing in Idaho and voting in the Hawaii primary.
But Michigan is the night's crown jewel in terms of
delegates. Fifty-nine are at stake in the Republican race, while 147
will be awarded on the Democratic side.
While Trump has stunned Republicans with his broad
appeal, he's forged a particularly strong connection with blue-collar
white voters. With an eye on the general election, he's argued he could
put Midwestern, Democratic-leaning industrial states such as Michigan
and Wisconsin in play for Republicans.
A Monmouth University poll released Monday showed
Trump winning 36 percent of likely GOP primary voters, 13 percentage
points ahead of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who said
Michigan was part of his "home court" last week, polled a close third
with 21 percent of the vote, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio placed
fourth with 13 percent of the likely vote.
Victories by Cruz in Kansas and Maine have threatened
to make the Republican race a two-man sprint to the finish. But Kasich
and Rubio are holding out hope they can win their winner-take-all home
states March 15.
Entering Tuesday, Trump leads the Republican race
with 384 delegates, followed by Cruz with 300, Rubio with 151 delegates
and Kasich with 37. Winning the GOP nomination requires 1,237 delegates.
"It's not just the whole country that's watching
Michigan — now the world's beginning to watch," Kasich said Monday
during a campaign stop in the state. "You can help me send a message
about positive, about vision, about hope, about putting us together."
Rubio sought a boost in Tuesday's contests from Mitt
Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee. Romney has recently become an outspoken
critic of Trump and recorded a phone call on Rubio's behalf in which he
warns Republicans that if the real estate mogul wins the nomination,
"the prospects for a safe and prosperous future would be greatly
diminished."
Romney has not endorsed a candidate in the GOP
primary, but clearly says in the phone recording that he's speaking on
behalf of the Rubio campaign. A Romney spokeswoman said the former
Massachusetts governor has offered to help Rubio, Kasich and Cruz in any
way he can.
During a stop at a catfish restaurant on Monday in
Mississippi, Cruz said the current vacancy on the Supreme Court means
Republicans can't take a chance on Trump.
"He's been supporting left-wing politicians for 40 years," Cruz said.
On the Democratic side, Clinton boosted her delegate
lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over the weekend, as a win in
Saturday's Louisiana primary canceled out wins for Sanders in the
Kansas, Nebraska and Maine caucuses. The Monmouth University poll gave
Clinton a 13-percentage point lead over the self-described democratic
socialist among likely voters.
Ahead of Tuesday's two Democratic contests,
Clinton had accumulated 1,130 delegates and Sanders 499, including
superdelegates. Democrats need 2,383 delegates to win the nomination.
In an effort to boost his standing in Michigan,
Sanders has repeatedly accused Clinton of of being disingenuous when she
asserted that he opposed the bailout of carmakers General Motors and
Chrysler during the Great Recession.
Sanders defended his voting record on the issue again during a Fox News town hall in Detroit Monday night.
"What I did not vote for was the bailout of Wall
Street. … She did vote for that,” Sanders said, referring to Clinton’s
time as a New York senator.
Sanders and Clinton both voted in favor of a bailout
bill in 2008, but it failed to clear the Senate, prompting
then-President George W. Bush to announce about a week later that the
federal government would step in with $17.4 billion in federal aid to
help the carmakers survive and restructure. The last $4 billion was
contingent on the release of the second installment of the Wall Street
bailout funds.
Sanders did vote for a 2009 motion to block the
release of those funds, though the measure was defeated by 45 Democrats,
including Clinton, and a handful of Republicans.
Republicans hoping to halt Donald J. Trump’s
march to their party’s presidential nomination emerged from the
weekend’s voting contests newly emboldened by Mr. Trump’s uneven
electoral performance and by some nascent signs that he may be peaking
with voters.
Outside
groups are moving to deploy more than $10 million in new attack ads
across Florida and millions more in Illinois, casting Mr. Trump as a
liberal, a huckster and a draft dodger. Mr. Trump’s reed-thin
organization appears to be catching up with him, suggesting he could be
at a disadvantage if he is forced into a protracted slog for delegates.
And
vote tallies on Saturday made clear that Mr. Trump has had at least
some trouble building upon his intensely loyal following, leaving him
increasingly dependent upon landslides in early voting.
In
Louisiana, where Mr. Trump amassed a lead of more than 20 percentage
points among those who cast votes before Saturday, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas effectively tied him among voters who cast their ballots on Saturday.
“Trump
has to worry about the consistent late-voter rejection of his
candidacy,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and Republican
presidential candidate.
Mr.
Trump’s losses to Mr. Cruz in Kansas and Maine on Saturday, coupled
with closer-than-expected victories in Louisiana and Kentucky, have
heightened the prospects for a two-man race, though many Republican
leaders eye Mr. Cruz warily.
As
his rivals have despaired over the race’s vulgar turn, Mr. Trump struck
a subdued tone, by his standards, as returns came in late Saturday
night. He aborted his first attempt to take the stage and left the room
after asking reporters if the race in Kentucky had been called.
When
he finally did speak, some of his usual bombast was missing, even as he
insisted that it was time for Senator Marco Rubio to quit the race and
that Mr. Cruz cannot win more moderate northeastern or coastal states.
“Donald
Trump was uncharacteristically low energy,” Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee in 2012, said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,”
taunting Mr. Trump with the insult Mr. Trump had employed against Jeb
Bush. Yet despite the renewed optimism of his opponents, the path to
deny Mr. Trump the nomination remains narrow and arduous.
Mr.
Cruz’s emergence as the most credible alternative to Mr. Trump has
proved both a boost and a complication for those seeking to derail the
New Yorker. Mr. Cruz has tried to undercut calls for a contested
convention to deny Mr. Trump the nomination, which Mr. Cruz says would
yield a “manifest revolt” among voters. But Mr. Cruz has done little so
far to threaten Mr. Trump’s lead in the delegate race.
Much
of Mr. Cruz’s late-breaking support on Saturday seemed to come at the
expense of Mr. Rubio, not Mr. Trump. And the Cruz campaign’s message of
ideological purity and religious faith is a less natural fit for many of
the delegate-rich Midwestern and coastal states that remain on the map.
“Saturday
proved that Trump can be contained and even beaten,” said Scott
Jennings, a longtime Republican strategist, who looked ahead to this
summer’s Republican convention in Cleveland. “The question is whether
the field is going to allow for it moving forward. The most likely
scenarios remain that Trump gets enough before Cleveland, or nobody
does. The latter moved a little closer to realistic Saturday.”
Mr.
Rubio’s path is much less certain, despite his lopsided victory in
Puerto Rico on Sunday. Even his supporters said that the results on
Saturday seriously undercut the premise of his bid: that he is the only
candidate who can unify the Republican Party and defeat Mr. Trump.
“Look,
I’m supportive of Marco; I’m very hopeful,” said Mel Martinez, the
former senator from Florida, who had supported Mr. Bush. “But it’s a
great concern that time has kind of caught up with this whole thing.”
The
Stop Trump forces are beginning to pour money into television ads, with
a particular focus on the big states voting on March 15. Four different
groups have reserved at least $10 million in airtime in Florida so far,
according to trackers of media spending. That number is expected to
grow, but television stations in Florida are already awash in such ads.
Two
from the American Future Fund, which has spent $2 million so far in
Florida and Illinois, show decorated veterans assailing Mr. Trump as a
poseur on military matters. Michael Waltz, a retired Special Forces
colonel, blisteringly calls Mr. Trump a draft dodger and, effectively, a
coward. “Donald Trump hasn’t served this country a day in his life,” he
says. “Don’t let Trump fool you.”
And
a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, Tom Hanton, bluntly questions Mr.
Trump’s toughness: “Trump would not have survived the P.O.W. experience.
He would have been probably the first one to fold.”
Separately,
Club for Growth Action, an arm of the anti-tax group that was the first
to run ads in Iowa against Mr. Trump, has placed $2 million in
commercials attacking him in Illinois on top of $1 million in Florida.
A
third group, Our Principles PAC, which was created to defeat Mr. Trump,
has reserved $3.5 million in Illinois and Florida and is also sending
direct mail to voters’ homes in Florida. A group supporting Mr. Rubio,
Conservative Solutions, is spending several million dollars in Florida
as well.
The
deluge of negative messages from a patchwork of groups — highlighting
claims by angry customers of Mr. Trump’s defunct educational company and
his history of shape-shifting positions — already appears to have hurt
Mr. Trump’s cause.
In
conversations with some of his allies, who insisted on anonymity to
relay those private talks, Trump campaign aides have expressed concern
about the money being spent against him on television. The Trump
campaign has no pollster, so it is governed by public polling and what
the candidate himself observes while watching cable news.
This
off-the-cuff approach, and a string of self-inflicted wounds — refusing
to clearly and immediately reject the support of the white supremacist
David Duke, boasting about his sexual endowment on the debate stage and
withdrawing from the Conservative Political Action Committee’s
conference over the weekend — have fueled days of unfavorable coverage
of Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
“Trump
has total disdain for the professional political class,” said Scott
Reed, a veteran Republican strategist. “He thinks they’re all about
making money. Pollsters are hacks. Organization doesn’t matter. Their
idea of a political organization is taking phone calls from some elected
officials who wanted to endorse and making it work in the schedule. And
that’ll catch up with you eventually.”
Still,
members of the Republican establishment have been left to grapple with
what was once unthinkable: rallying around Mr. Cruz, a senator who built
his reputation bashing them.
“Some
hope with Ted, no hope with Donald,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina said on “Meet the Press,” summarizing the party’s dim view of
its remaining options. Neither, he suggested, would be likely to expand
the Republican tent: “We’re in a demographic death spiral.”
Less than two weeks ago, Mr. Graham joked about murdering Mr. Cruz on the Senate floor.
And
yet, Mr. Graham said, he received a phone call from Mr. Cruz after
Super Tuesday — part of efforts by the Cruz campaign to reach out,
discreetly, to donors and party officials who might be interested in
rallying around him.
With
Mr. Rubio faltering badly across the board on Saturday, Mr. Cruz is
moving to compete aggressively in Florida. He has also weighed the
merits of a significant push in Ohio, the home state of Gov. John
Kasich.
Both
states are winner-take-all, and the Cruz campaign insists it would only
dedicate substantial resources if it thought it could win outright. But
the effort is risky: It could boost Mr. Trump, if Mr. Cruz diminishes
his non-Trump rivals without a victory.
The
Cruz campaign says it can reach the requisite delegate threshold of
1,237 without winning Florida or Ohio, thanks to its superior
organization in later-voting states, many of which are closed to
non-Republicans.
But
several party strategists have disputed this math, even if the contests
on March 15 force some of Mr. Cruz’s competitors from the race.
A
moment of reckoning for Mr. Rubio will come Tuesday in Michigan, a
state that has concentrations of the kinds of voters he performs well
with: professional, younger, highly educated and upper-income. But a
poll released on Sunday by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal showed
Mr. Rubio trailing Mr. Cruz and Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump received 41
percent, followed by Mr. Cruz at 22 percent, Mr. Rubio at 17 percent and
Mr. Kasich at 13 percent.
Despite
this, some Michigan Republicans say that Mr. Kasich may emerge as the
state’s establishment choice. And in a race that has often felt like a
reality television show, Mr. Kasich secured an apt endorsement on
Sunday: that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will replace Mr. Trump as the
host of “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
Correction: March 6, 2016
An earlier version of a picture caption with this article
misstated the location of a Conservative Political Action Committee
conference. It was in National Harbor, Md., not Alexandria, Va.
Mitt Romney said Sunday that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz
winning two primary states this weekend proves the Texas senator can
stop front-runner Donald Trump, but declined to rule out his own White
House scenario.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and the
Republicans' 2012 presidential nominee, repeated remarks from last week,
telling “Fox News Sunday” that he wouldn’t launch an eleventh-hour
campaign for president. But he declined to reject being “drafted” at the
GOP convention in July to be the party’s general election candidate.
“It would be absurd to say that if I were drafted I’d
say no,” Romney said. “We have four strong people running for the
nomination. One of them will be the nominee.”
Romney has occasionally weighed in on the 2016 GOP
race. But he emerged in full force Thursday when he gave a speech in
which he called Trump a “phony” and urged voters to instead back an
establishment candidate like Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Ohio Gov.
John Kasich.
“It was a big night for Ted Cruz,” Romney said Sunday
about the Texas senator's Saturday wins in the Maine and Kansas
caucuses. “That’s because people are starting to take a better look at
Donald Trump.”
Romney returned to his argument that Trump touts
being a successful New York real estate magnate and billionaire
businessman. However, he has a long list of businesses failures
including a commercial airline and his Trump University real estate
school, Romney said.
“He’s not the real deal,” Romney told Fox. “He’s a phony.”
Still, Romney was pressed to explain why he accepted
Trump’s 2012 endorsement and acknowledge that all of Trump’s business
flops didn’t happen after 2012.
“Sixty-one million people voted for me,” Romney said. “I don’t think all 61 million should be president of the United States.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday won the Republican primary in
Puerto Rico, his second victory in the 2016 race, according to the
Associated Press.
Rubio won the Minnesota GOP Caucus on Super Tuesday
and is struggling to keep his campaign alive through March 15, when his
home state holds a primary in which the winner takes all 99 delegates.
Twenty-three delegates were up for grabs in Puerto
Rico. Rubio was the only candidate in the four-man GOP field to campaign
on the island, whose residents cannot vote in the general election.
The first-term senator trails front-runner Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, in the 2016 GOP race.
Rubio had at least 70 percent of the vote with most precincts reporting, followed by Trump, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Florida is widely considered a must-win for Rubo,
considering that losing one's home state could be debilitating for a
presidential campaign.
The Puerto Rico win should help Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, rally South Florida's big Latino voting bloc.
Fresh off a series of weekend victories in state caucuses, Bernie
Sanders turned up the heat on Hillary Clinton at Sunday’s debate in
Flint, Mich., sharply challenging her economic credentials and
suggesting her gun control stand would ban guns in America. But the
Democratic front-runner fought back, blasting him for voting against the
auto bailout, dismissing him as a “one-issue candidate” and hitting him
once again for his stance on guns.
The Vermont senator reached back to the 1990s as he
went after Clinton’s support for “disastrous trade agreements” like
NAFTA. His rhetoric was notably more pointed and, reflecting the tension
in the race, Sanders even cut her off at times as she tried to speak
over him.
“Excuse me, I’m talking,” Sanders snapped, during one feisty exchange on the economy.
But Clinton pushed back, and defended the country’s economic progress during her husband’s administration.
“If we’re going to argue about the ‘90s, let’s try to
get the facts straight,” she said, touting the jobs and income growth
that came with the era.
Sanders also tried to cast Clinton as soft on climate
change, while declaring he unequivocally does not support fracking.
Clinton maintained she has the “most comprehensive plan to combat
climate change.”
The clashes came after Sanders won the Maine
Democratic caucuses, adding to wins the night before in Nebraska and
Kansas — by far the most successful two days of his campaign.
But Sanders remains significantly behind in the race
for delegates, with Clinton having won more – and more valuable – state
contests, as well as enjoying the overwhelming support of so-called
“superdelegates.” Sanders is looking for a game-changer as the race
heads next to states like Michigan this coming Tuesday, and Ohio and
Florida the week after that.
Sanders cited his most recent wins at the end of
Sunday’s debate, in arguing he would be the better candidate to go up
against Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
He began to joke he’d give his “right arm” to run
against the billionaire businessman and then cited polls saying,
“Sanders versus Trump does a lot better than Clinton versus Trump.”
But while Sanders said he’s “exciting” working-class and young voters, Clinton pointed to the raw numbers.
“There’s only one candidate [in either primary
campaign] who has more votes than [Trump], and that’s me,” Clinton said.
“I will look forward to engaging him.”
With the CNN-hosted debate held in Michigan, the state’s economic and crime problems were front and center.
On gun control, the two candidates sparred sharply,
with Clinton using the Sandy Hook massacre to make a point about holding
gun makers responsible for crimes – and Sanders arguing that position
would effectively mean an America without guns.
The dispute started when Sanders defended his past
support for a bill to help protect gun manufacturers and sellers from
lawsuits. He said if gun sellers and makers are held liable in many of
these cases, “What you’re really talking about is ending gun
manufacturing in America.”
Clinton countered that no other industry in America has “absolute immunity,” and invoked the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
The Democratic rivals were most heated when talking
about their respective records on the economy. Sanders went after
Clinton over what he called “disastrous trade agreements” like NAFTA.
She countered by pointing out he opposed the auto
industry bailout. He tried to describe it as the Wall Street bailout,
and got a little feisty when she started to speak over him.
“Excuse me, I’m talking,” he said. “Your story is for voting for every disastrous trade agreement.”
Clinton then called him a “one-issue candidate.” And
on the auto bailout, she said, “If everybody had voted the way he did, I
believe the auto industry would have collapsed, taking 4 million jobs
with it.”
“My one issue is trying to rebuild a disappearing middle class. That’s my one issue,” Sanders said.
Meanwhile, at the top of the debate, Clinton and
Sanders momentarily set aside their differences, to lament the plight of
the people in the host city of Flint, and call for the governor’s
resignation over the toxic water crisis.
Sanders said there’s “blame to go around” but Republican Gov. Rick Snyder should resign.
Clinton echoed the remarks, saying, “Amen to that.”
“The governor should resign or be recalled,” she
said, while also calling on the federal and state governments to send
more money to the city.
The city’s water crisis started when the city
switched to the Flint River in 2014 while under a state-appointed
emergency manager. While the state has taken much of the blame,
officials with the city and federal government – as well as the state –
have also resigned.
Clinton faced Sanders on the debate stage as she
fights to shake her lone primary rival, who keeps notching just enough
primary and caucus wins to keep his campaign alive, and a threat to her
bid.
Sanders rode to victory in Maine in part on a huge
turnout — Sanders beat Clinton by a ratio of nearly 2-to-1. The turnout
was so big Sunday that some voters had to wait in line for more than
four hours in Portland.
The victory gives Sanders a total of three victories over the weekend to Clinton’s one, in the Louisiana primary.
The results from Maine Sunday aren't binding, but
will be used to select a slate of delegates to the state convention,
where national delegates will be elected. Maine will send 25 delegates
and 30 superdelegates.
On Super Tuesday last week, Clinton won seven states
to Sanders’ four. She maintains a sizeable delegate lead – which before
the Maine contest stood at 1,121 to 481. It takes 2,383 delegates to win
the nomination.
But Sanders, even by winning lower-profile contests,
has managed to at least demonstrate lingering weaknesses in the
front-runner’s campaign as he draws an enthusiastic response in the
grassroots-driven caucus states. Sanders sees upcoming Midwestern
primaries as a crucial opportunity to slow her momentum by highlighting
his trade policies – though Clinton has led in the polls in Michigan.
“Geographically, we’re looking good,” Sanders said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “We have a path.”
Sanders acknowledged his campaign has yet to connect
with African-American voters, which hurt him badly in his South Carolina
loss last month to Clinton.
However, he told ABC, “I think you’re going to see those numbers change.”