Sanders to make play in Michigan and Missouri suburbs, aide says

An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday that his campaign is seeking to shore up support in Michigan and Missouri suburbs ahead of those states’ primaries next week.

Chuck Rocha, a senior Sanders campaign adviser, voiced optimism that the senator could win over support in the suburban areas, telling Hill.TV that people there have “moved around” from different candidates.

“So I don’t think they’re locked down in Michigan. I don’t think they’re locked down in Missouri,” he said. “Two places that have a lot of those suburbs outside of St. Louis and outside of Detroit.”

Rocha said Sanders’s campaign plans to focus on engaging voters in those areas ahead of the March 10 primaries, characterizing them as “still persuadable.”

“Part of that is showing up and just having the conversation,” he said. 

“And we know that Joe Biden and other candidates may not have built the infrastructure there,” he added. “We’ve got people working all those states.”

Sanders scored a win in the Michigan primary in 2016 but lost to Hillary Clinton in Missouri that year.

The Vermont senator is seeking to pull out strong showings in those states next week after Biden scored upset victories in multiple states on Super Tuesday, pushing him ahead of Sanders in the race for delegates.

Biden won Oklahoma, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Texas, among other states that Sanders competed for Tuesday, while the former vice president was also leading in Maine as of early Wednesday afternoon.

The former vice president had 547 delegates as of Wednesday afternoon, while the Vermont senator has 484, although not all of the Super Tuesday delegates have been distributed. 

Sanders had led in the number of delegates heading into Super Tuesday following wins in New Hampshire and Nevada and a close second-place finish in Iowa last month.

But Biden began his comeback with a major win in South Carolina over the weekend, with fellow moderate candidates Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) later dropping out and endorsing him on the eve of Super Tuesday.