With Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' campaign seemingly growing in strength after another win in Nevada over the weekend, early voting in Massachusetts began Monday in the Democratic primary for president with home-state Sen. Elizabeth Warren in search of places to put a win on the board.
Warren and Sanders are running neck-and-neck in Massachusetts, according to the latest polling, but they are hardly the only two Democrats competing in the Bay State.
The campaigns of the top-tier candidates have been ramping up ahead of the March 3 primary, deploying flocks of surrogates around the state to knock on doors and rally supporters in hopes of walking away with at least a few of the state's 91 delegates.
Massachusetts is one of 14 states that will vote on Super Tuesday, just days after the next contest on Saturday in South Carolina. Warren was in the Palmetto State on Monday campaigning with U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley ahead of another debate there Tuesday night where she will look to build on her performance at a Nevada debate that helped her raise $14 million.
Musician John Legend plans to join Warren on the trail in South Carolina later in the week.
Warren enjoys significant support in Massachusetts, as evidenced by the throngs of high-profile leaders who fanned out across the state over the weekend to rally support for the senator. Those supporters included Attorney General Maura Healey, U.S. Reps. Jim McGovern and Lori Trahan and Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera.
She picked up another notable backer on Monday when House Speaker Robert DeLeo said he would be voting for the Warren in the primary.
"I'm not sure if I'll have the early voting or the day of the election, but I will be voting for Sen. Warren to be president," DeLeo told reporters. The Winthrop Democrat mentioned talking with Warren about gun control legislation that he spearheaded, and that he said became a template for her own bill in Congress.
"Watching her in the debates and whatnot, I think she's best suited to be the next president of the United States," DeLeo said.
The speaker's endorsement of Warren put him on the same page as Senate President Karen Spilka, who has campaigned for Warren in New Hampshire, and said she was not discouraged by Warren's back-to-back fourth place finishes in New Hampshire and Nevada.
"We've had three states give their results. There are plenty more to come," Spilka said.
The Ashland Democrat said she voted last week at her Town Hall, before early voting began. Her staff later clarified that she voted absentee while at the Town Hall to get a new dog licenses.
"I think she is electable. She has a very strong grassroots organization across the country. She's got a great head on her shoulders, she's a collaborator and she works really, really hard," Spilka said.
Warren's hope moving into Super Tuesday is that the field will begin to consolidate and she can stand out as the consensus candidate, occupying an ideological lane somewhere between Sanders and whoever emerges as the moderate standard bearer.
"The road to the Democratic nomination is not paved with statewide winner-take-all victories," Warren campaign manager Roger Lau wrote in a memo after the Iowa caucuses, predicting at the time that Warren was "poised to finish in the top two in over half of Super Tuesday states" and walk away with a sizable share of delegates.
U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, who counted Warren among his law professors at Harvard University, rallied supporters at 1369 Coffee House in Cambridge Monday morning, before the group moved down the street to Cambridge City Hall to cast their early votes.
Kennedy followed up by returning to his hometown of Newton to also participate in the first day of early voting.
But, by no means, does the senator have a monopoly on the Democratic establishment in her home state.
Former Vice President Joe Biden's roots run deep in Massachusetts, and Sanders rolled out 18 endorsements on Monday to highlight his support in places like Somerville and Cambridge -- Warren's home -- bringing his total to 24.
While most presidential candidates often bypass Massachusetts in favor of campaigning in more delegate-rich states like California and Texas, Sanders, according to the New York Times, plans to visit the Bay State himself before next Tuesday.
Sanders won close to 50 percent of the vote in Massachusetts in 2016, losing the state to Hillary Clinton by just over 17,000 votes.
His supporters include state Reps. Michael Moran of Boston, Mike Connolly of Cambridge, Paul Mark of Peru, Nika Elugardo of Boston and Lindsay Sabadosa of Northampton and Sens. Paul Feeney of Foxborough and Jamie Eldridge of Acton.
"A living wage, health care as a human right, protecting our immigrant neighbors and a Green New Deal are all issues that Bernie brought to the forefront of the national conversation. I will do everything in my power to get Bernie elected as our next president because he says what is in his heart and is the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump," Moran said in a statement.
Bernie's campaign is planning what it's calling Berniepalooza for next weekend in Worcester, a four-day festival of music and canvassing based at the campaign's central Massachusetts headquarters starting Friday.
A University of Massachusetts Center for Public Opinion poll released last week found Warren dueling with Sanders for supremacy in Massachusetts, running neck-and-neck with Sanders with 20 percent of the vote to Sanders' 21 percent.
They were followed by former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 15 percent, Biden in fourth with 14 percent, and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg at 12 percent support.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who trailed the lead pack in the UMass Lowell poll at 9 percent, received the endorsement of Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett on Monday.
Meanwhile, Biden was in South Carolina on Monday where he's hoping to notch his first win of the primaries. And in a reversal of the usual pilgrimage of Bay State pols to New Hampshire, U.S. Rep. Annie Kuster came south on Monday to campaign in Boston for Buttigieg.
It was the same day Buttigieg rolled out a tax plan that included proposals to expand the child tax credit and the earned income tax credit and eliminate the new cap on state and local tax deductions that was part of President Trump's tax plan.
Bloomberg, who will be on the ballot for the first time in states voting on Super Tuesday, is among those looking for a strong showing in Massachusetts next week.
His campaign in Massachusetts is chaired by former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis, and over the weekend, he had actor Michael Douglas, star of "Wall Street" and "The American President," on the campaign's "Get Out The Vote" bus making stops in Quincy, Medford and Brookline.
The Medford native and New York billionaire endured withering criticism from his Democratic rivals during his first debate last week in Nevada, none hotter than from Warren.
Warren criticized his use of non-disclosure agreements at his company and policies he employed as mayor of New York, including stop-and-frisk.
The billionaire businessman's campaign convened a meeting with local business leaders in Boston on Friday to pitch the executive as the Democrat best positioned to defeat Trump, according WGBH News.
"We clearly had a little bit of a rough night on the debate stage. We're going to be better next week down in South Carolina," Jim Anderson, a senior adviser to Bloomberg, told reporters after the private meeting at the offices of law firm Foley Hoag in Boston, according to WGBH.
The campaign plans a post-debate strategy briefing for media in Boston this week after the South Carolina debate.
The Democratic contest isn't the only one on the ballot a week from Tuesday, though President Donald Trump is expected to win in Massachusetts on the Republican side despite former Gov. Bill Weld's presence on the ballot.
Weld had a Town Hall planned for Monday night on the campus of UMass Boston, and planned to be in Leominster and Worcester on Tuesday, with another Town Hall planned at Worcester State University and a tour of Polar Park.
Republican attorneys general plan to gather in Charlestown, South Carolina, hours before Tuesday's debate to "discuss how the Democrats' lawless agenda is harmful to Americans in contrast to the successful rule of law agenda of the Trump Administration," according to the Republican Attorneys General Association.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr will hold a panel discussion ahead of the debate among Democrats.
Gov. Charlie Baker, the most popular Republican in Massachusetts, has not said how he intended to vote on Super Tuesday, but has said he will not be supporting the president, and said Monday that he does not plan to vote early.
