Campaigns look south to strategize for Super Tuesday

MOBILE, Ala. - Ben Carson journeyed here last week to the buckle of the Bible Belt, where he proclaimed America a 'Judeo-Christian nation” and delivered a stern warning to his devoted followers: Show up at the polls March 1 or face consequences.

On Saturday, Donald Trump again swooped into Alabama, where he has cultivated friendships with immigration hard- liners, to rally fans in Birmingham. Marco Rubio has his eyes on the state, too, recently becoming one of only two candidates - Carson was the other - to submit a full slate of 76 delegates for its primary.

Then there's Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose volunteers have been buzzing around Alabama gathering names of grass-roots opponents to the Common Core education standards. At next weekend's Alabama-Auburn football game, Cruz's campaign bus will be parked with free stickers and literature.

'The Iron Bowl is a big, big moment in Alabama, and Cruz people will be everywhere,” said Ann Eubank, Cruz's state co-chairwoman.

Alabama has become an unusual magnet for Republican presidential candidates because it is one of 11 mostly Southern states holding a primary or caucus March 1 - the delegate bonanza known as Super Tuesday.

While the February states - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada - are expected to set the tone and winnow the field, Super Tuesday will arrive like a thunder clap, likely determining which pairings will survive for what could be a protracted battle for the nomination.

'It's a huge delegate haul, and it's either going to change the momentum coming out of the early states or reaffirm it,” said John Weaver, chief strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is building an Alabama coalition led by the state's governor.

‘SEC Primary'

For centrist Republicans such as Kasich, the aim might not be so much sweeping Super Tuesday as surviving it. After March 1, the calendar turns more to their liking, with a number of winner-take-all states in less conservative regions where suburban, business-friendly Republicans might matter more than evangelicals and Tea Party activists.

For Trump and Carson, the outsiders who have dominated the race for months, Super Tuesday long has been seen by party operatives as the turning point when one of them could surge.

For Cruz, who has sought to appeal to many of the same voters as Trump and Carson, the Southern states are essential. He sees them as his best chance to leap ahead of his rivals after what could be a muddled field by late February. In Georgia, for example, he has enlisted more than 100 county organizers and has volunteer chairs in all 14 congressional districts. The senator's wife, Heidi, visited the Atlanta suburbs last week to talk up her husband's candidacy to Republican women.

Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe said, 'Our approach is to have neighbors call neighbors, pro-lifer to pro-lifer, gun owner to gun owner. That philosophy is painted on our wall - to personalize each contact so that it's not somebody calling from a remote access phone bank in another state with a neutral dialect.”

Super Tuesday hasbeen called the 'SEC primary,” a reference to college football's Southeastern Conference, because of the many Southern states in play - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

But other March 1 contests will test the candidates in different ways, such as primaries in Massachusetts and Vermont - both states where Republicans are marginalized but that feature strong conservative currents. Minnesota has a caucus that rewards field organizing, while Alaska is so remote that few candidates have campaigned there.

Targeted approaches

Securing the nomination is a matter of accumulating delegates, and exponentially more are up for grabs March 1 - 595 total - than in the four early states, which together have only 133 delegates, according to figures provided by the Republican National Committee.

Super Tuesday delegates are awarded proportionally, many of them by congressional district. This gives lower-tier candidates an opportunity to pick up delegates without winning states outright, as long as their vote totals meet the minimum thresholds, which vary by state from 5 percent to 20 percent.

'Everyone feels like they can come in and leave with a few delegates, so we see an uptick in campaigning and organizing over the past few cycles,” said Brent Leatherwood, executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party.

Consider former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is struggling nationally but hopes to win delegates by over-performing in the March 1 Southern states, many of which he carried in 2008.

'We're focused on where we can get the most delegates, the biggest bang for the buck,” strategist Chip Saltsman said. 'For example, in Texas, there are some rural congressional districts where if you go do a visit you might pick up more voters than if you were up on Dallas TV for a week.”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also is vying for Texas - which his father, Ron, represented in Congress - but is concentrating on turning out young voters there and in other Southern states. Campaign manager Chip Englander said Texas is 'proportional and it has a lot of college towns, so we have Ron's supporters with us and lots of college students.”

Carson's playbook in Texas is similar to other Southern states - targeting majority black congressional districts to win delegates.

'Dr. Carson is already a legend in these communities,” said Barry Bennett, Carson's campaign manager. 'So we're going to churches, to community centers where, frankly, most of the others don't go.”

Bush's strategy

Jeb Bush's allied super PAC, Right to Rise, already has booked $14.5 million in television advertising in March 1 states, and plans to spend at least $2 million more. The ad reservations offer clues to the former Florida governor's strategy.

Right to Rise is spending heavily in Texas, where former presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush are from, as well as Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, where there are suburban districts with relatively moderate Republican electorates.

But it has not reserved any time in Alabama or Arkansas, which are conservative bastions.

The Bush campaign acknowledges he is unlikely to win by big margins across the South, but advisers intend to maximize his performance in specific areas.

'We're being very efficient with our spending,” said David James, Bush's national political director.