Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards will focus his campaign dollars, staffers and personal visits on 10 of the 22 states coming up in next week’s Super Tuesday primary.
A few other states will see resources in key congressional districts, but overall, Edwards’ campaign strategists want to continue the delegate-gathering journey that they see as their best hope for winning the Democratic presidential nomination, reports Barb Barrett.
“If we can compete (in the 10 focus states) and be viable in the remaining 12 states, than we’re going to have a very good day on Feb. 5,” said David Bonior, Edwards’ campaign manager.
Read more after the jump.
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In a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Edwards’ aides refused to outline their exact strategy. But the campaign has advertising buys scheduled in 10 states, and Edwards has visits scheduled through Wednesday in Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alabama and Georgia.
In each state, Edwards must win at least 15 percent of the vote to earn delegates, so aides are focusing on areas where he has that chance.
“Our polling data shows us in that in many of these states we’re running in the high teens, low 20s, and we have a shot to pick up a lot of delegates,” Bonior said.
Right now, Edwards has 26 delegates to Obama’s 53 and Clinton’s 48.
A candidate needs 2,025 – half the available delegates plus one – to win the nomination. Edwards’ camp said they can envision a situation in which no candidate arrives at the convention with a majority – making Edwards a player.
Edwards also has raised more than $3.2 million online in January and is “moving toward $4 million,” said senior campaign strategist Joe Trippi. That amounts to most of his total monthly fundraising, Trippi said, and most of it will be eligible for matching public dollars.
“We’ve really outpaced where we thought we’d be,” he said.
Edwards lags behind Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in delegate numbers, media coverage and war chests, but aides said he’ll be able to hold his own next Tuesday.
“I’m not going to tell you the dollar-sign buys or exactly what markets it’s going in,” said Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager. “It’ll amount to something not quite as large as our opponents, but something about three-fourths the size of our opponents.”
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