Biden, Warren battle for third place in New Hampshire

With Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg battling to win Tuesday's primary here and seize the momentum in a highly unpredictable race, another drama is playing out with serious implications for the other high-profile candidates in the Democrats' once-sprawling field.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is facing the prospect of losing badly in a state neighboring her home of Massachusetts, while Joe Biden’s campaign is bracing for another potentially humiliating defeat and, as a result, a new round of anxiety among its top donors and questions about the viability of a former vice president once seen as the Democrats’ best hope to defeat President Trump.

The grim question facing Warren and Biden is not whether they can win New Hampshire, according to strategists, but how low they will finish — and what that result would mean for their candidacies.

Two days before voters head to the polls, Biden advisers were already eager to move on, hoping the former vice president would do better with Nevada and South Carolina’s more diverse electorate. But there are growing concerns, even inside his campaign, that financial resources are being strained ahead of an upcoming stretch that will only get more expensive as the race shifts into a national campaign.

A finish of fourth place or lower by Biden in New Hampshire would also likely give a boost to the campaign of former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg (D), who has cast himself as the chief “establishment” alternative to Sanders and who is forgoing the early states in favor of the March 3 Super Tuesday contests. Bloomberg has already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising in those states.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-warren-battle-for-third-place-in-new-hampshire/2020/02/09/88b4ce1e-4ac2-11ea-b4d9-29cc419287eb_story.html