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Biden Vows to Emulate Bill Clinton With Comeback Primary Wins

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden brushed off weak showings in the first two 2020 Democratic nominating contests and vowed to be the party’s presumptive front-runner by the end of March.

“Bill Clinton lost his first eight, 10, 12 primaries and caucuses before he won one,” Biden said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re just getting to the meat of getting to the number of delegates you need to be able to win this election. And I’m confident we’re going to be in good shape.”

Biden placed fourth in Iowa’s caucuses with about 16% of the vote, and fifth in New Hampshire’s primary with 8.4% support. He’s slipped to second in national Democratic polls, according to the average calculated by RealClearPolitics.

The former vice president stopped short of saying that he needed to win the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29. Polls there show him in first place, but with a narrowing lead. “I think I have to do really well in it,” he said.

Biden said recent threats against officials at a prominent Nevada union who criticized Bernie Sanders’ health-care plan were “outrageous.”

‘Vicious’ Attacks

The threats were “vicious, malicious,” and “misogynistic,” Biden said in an excerpt of an interview to run Sunday on the NBC program.

Biden called on Sanders to accept greater accountability for the tactics and rhetoric of his staunchest supporters.

“He may not be responsible for it but he has some accountability,” Biden said. “If any of my supporters did that, I’d disown them.”

Sanders should “find out who the hell they are, if any of them work for me. Fire them. Find out. See what’s going on,“ he added.

The Nevada branch of the Culinary Workers Union said this week that Sanders’ backers had “viciously attacked” its members after the labor group warned about the possible impact of the senator’s Medicare for All proposal in a scorecard sizing up different candidates’ plans.

The Nevada Independent reported that two union officials had faced threatening phone calls, emails and tweets, and say their personal information was shared online. The union declined to endorse anyone in Nevada’s Democratic caucus, to be held Feb. 22.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Matthew G. Miller

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