Honda: @RobertBuckland & I have already spoken to the Business Secretary & Honda. They are clear this is based on global trends and not Brexit as all European market production will consolidate in Japan in 2021.

— Justin Tomlinson MP (@JustinTomlinson) February 18, 2019

When Bernie Sanders was mulling a 2020 campaign last year, he said he would likely pull the trigger if he thought he was the “best candidate” to defeat President Trump.

Now that he’s officially in the race for the White House, a key element of his argument is that he is — in a way that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. His campaign is gearing up to take direct aim at one of the central cases made against him: That the 77-year-old democratic socialist, far from being unable to win a general election, could blaze a non-traditional path to victory on the electoral map unlike any other Democratic candidate.

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This month, Ben Tulchin, Sanders’ pollster, circulated a memo about an online survey he conducted in late 2017 for progressives who were hoping to flip state legislative seats in West Virginia. The poll found that Sanders would beat Trump by 2 percentage points in the state — despite the fact that Trump won West Virginia, 69-27, and that no Democratic presidential candidate has carried the state since 1996.

To operatives in both parties, the notion that Sanders could defeat Trump in one of the president’s strongholds strains credulity. But the Sanders team is convinced the Vermont senator’s appeal to independent voters, the white working class, and people of color is underestimated — and could pay dividends in unexpected places in a general election. They argue that his anti-establishment and populist economic message, as well as his many years of representing rural voters, makes him competitive in not only the Rust Belt states where Hillary Clinton faltered but also potentially in deep-red states, too.

They’re not just talking about West Virginia. Some in the Sanders camp envision possibly making a play for Iowa, Ohio, and Indiana, as well as states such as Kansas, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Montana — six states that, together, have voted for the Democratic nominee just twice in the past half-century.

“It could just radically change the map,” Tulchin told POLITICO. “As Bernie has showed, as Trump has showed, I don’t think we are in a binary, two-dimensional, left-right paradigm anymore.”

Convincing the primary electorate that he can defeat Trump in a general election looms as one of Sanders’ biggest challenges in 2020: His rivals, as well as pundits from both parties, will likely paint him as an extremist who could never win over the moderate voters who helped Democrats take back the House in the 2018 midterms.

With Democrats desperate to oust Trump, “electability” is a major concern for voters at this stage of the race, particularly among some groups that Sanders struggled to win over in 2016.

A recent Monmouth University poll showed a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning independent voters of all ages prioritize the ability to win the general election over ideology in a 2020 nominee. However, larger percentages of older voters, women, and people of color want a candidate who can conquer Trump, even if they disagree with most of their platform.

Most older voters, especially those of color, favored Clinton over Sanders in 2016 — and Sanders’ top allies and aides have acknowledged that he has much to do to change that.

“His peer group is harder on him across the board,” said Nina Turner, president of the Sanders-founded Our Revolution, referring to older voters. “He’s definitely going to have to work on bringing his peers into the fold.”

One adviser to the Vermont senator said those efforts will likely need to include a persuasive argument that he can oust Trump.

His aides argue that he is well-liked in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — the three Rust Belt states that helped hand Trump the keys to the White House — so Sanders begins with a foothold.

“I don’t think anybody can dispute with a straight face that Bernie Sanders is very popular in those places,” said Jeff Weaver, an adviser to Sanders. “That’s because he’s popular with the progressive base, he’s increasingly popular with the emerging electorate in the Democratic Party, and he is popular with traditional, working-class, industrial workers in those places.”

Sanders’ aides also point out that he has years of experience speaking to rural voters, and has enjoyed crossover appeal in his home state of Vermont. They hold up his 2016 primary victories in Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as his rallies with candidates in the 2018 midterms in those states, including with now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“It’s no secret that many candidates throughout the Midwest wanted him to campaign for them in 2018,” said Weaver.

Among the soft spots in the campaign’s case: In the Pennsylvania primary, Sanders lost to Clinton by 12 points. And Sanders’ has had past troubles connecting with key components of the Democratic coalition, whose turnout will help determine the nominee’s fate.

According to an analysis of exit polling in 25 primaries, Sanders narrowly won black voters under 30 in 2016, but lost older African-Americans by large margins, who turned out at higher rates than their younger counterparts. To beat Trump, the Democratic nominee will need robust support from black voters, the most loyal part of the party’s base.

Sanders’ team believes he’s in a much stronger position among black voters now than in 2016: They argue he has high favorability ratings among African-Americans, and unlike in his first presidential bid, starts with strong name ID.

Sanders’ aides also note his current position among Latinos: In several recent 2020 surveys, he is in first place among Latinos, placing better than even former Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s unlikely that Sanders, who eschews talking publicly about political strategy, will argue much if at all about “electability” himself.

“I think he needs to stay on his message,” said Turner, “and that message is going to make people aware that he is electable.”

But his advisers may make the case for him, directly and indirectly. Surrogates can address the “electability” issue in their messaging, and staff could strategically place primary rallies in red states and throughout the Rust Belt.

Other candidates have taken that route: When Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar kicked off her 2020 bid earlier this month, she said her first two stops would be in Iowa and Wisconsin, adding that “we’re starting in Wisconsin because, as you remember, there wasn’t a lot of campaigning in Wisconsin in 2016.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has highlighted her time representing a rural New York district. And Biden’s allies have argued that he can win back white working-class voters who have strayed from the Democratic Party, touting the positive reception he received while campaigning for 2018 candidates in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Florida.

Even Sanders, if not talking about electability outright, is hinting at it.

“Together,” he wrote in one of the final paragraphs of his email announcing his 2020 campaign, “we can defeat Donald Trump and repair the damage he has done to our country.”

Bernie Sanders launched his second campaign for president on Tuesday — this time as a heavyweight candidate against a crowded field of liberals, instead of the passionate underdog taking on the anointed nominee.

The independent senator, running in the Democratic primary as a self-described democratic socialist, announced his campaign in an email to supporters.

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But nearly four years after he kicked off his 2016 campaign at a 10-minute press conference outside the Capitol, this time will be a lot different. He starts as a frontrunner in the polls, armed with near-universal name ID, a massive email donor list, and a digital media empire that is currently unparalleled among other 2020 candidates. His left-wing policies, dismissed as fringe in 2016, have been embraced by much of the Democratic Party.

Sanders said he is seeking 1 million signatures for a petition backing his bid, a device that provides him with an opportunity to demonstrate the extent of his grass-roots support. He’s said repeatedly that he needs that help before taking on Wall Street, “the drug companies” and “the insurance companies” again in a second run.

Sanders’ core message will remain unchanged: He will continue his decades-long drumbeat against income inequality and a “corrupt” campaign finance system. Racial justice and a progressive foreign policy will also be at the forefront of his bid, Sanders’ advisers told POLITICO.

“Our campaign is about transforming our country and creating a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice,” Sanders wrote in his announcement email. “Our campaign is about taking on the powerful special interests that dominate our economic and political life. I’m talking about Wall Street, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial complex, the private-prison industry and the large multi-national corporations that exert such an enormous influence over our lives.”

As he has done in the past, Sanders also called President Trump a “racist” on Tuesday — and “a sexist, a xenophobe and someone who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction.”

Following humiliating defeats in 2016 in South Carolina and other states where African-Americans make up the majority of the Democratic primary electorate, Sanders is expected to attempt to do more, and earlier, outreach to black voters in 2020, and to draw a more explicit nexis between fighting economic inequality and racial inequality.

It wasn’t a mistake that Sanders’ first visit this year to an early primary state was to South Carolina on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. His speech there provided a preview of his revamped message.

“Racism … exists in this country today, and it exists when the median white family owns ten times more wealth than the median African-American family,” he said. “Racial equality must be central to combatting economic inequality, if we are to going to create a government that works for all of us, and not just the 1 percent.”

Another related focus for the campaign is winning over older voters. Sanders was estimated to have received more votes from young people in the primary than President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton combined, and narrowly won black voters under 30. But older Americans, particularly those of color, heavily favored Clinton.

Jeff Weaver, an adviser to Sanders, said “the challenge of the campaign is to reach out to older voters of all races, and how do you effectively do that — that’s an important challenge for us.”

“There’s got to be more of a focus on talking about issues that are immediately important to older voters … issues like health care and Social Security and retirement security,” he continued. “But I also think we have to draw a better connection between older and younger voters in terms of intergenerational appeal, so I think young people have to reach out to older people in their families and social circles as part of a campaign to win the support of older voters.”

Sanders cited other reasons he’s running again: to fight climate change, implement fair trade policies, take on the National Rifle Association, and “end the demonization of undocumented immigrants in this country and move to comprehensive immigration reform.”

An average of several recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics shows Sanders in second place in a Democratic primary with 17 percent, behind former Vice President Joe Biden by about 10 points. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is in third with about 11 percent, and no other candidate breaks 10 percent.

A December email from Sanders demonstrates the small-dollar fundraising muscle that he enters the race with: A message about a potential run raised about $300,000 from nearly 11,000 donations, according to a Sanders aide. The average donation was $27. Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised about the same amount online the day she launched her exploratory committee.

David Duhalde, political director of the Sanders-founded Our Revolution, said the senator also benefits from the rise of left-wing groups such as his since 2016, as well as from the general move leftward of the Democratic electorate. Progressive activists, Duhalde said, are “ready to hit the door and phones for him.”

“The country has dramatically transformed since 2008 and 2016 in ways that I think many people in the Beltway don’t recognize, or don’t want to admit,” he said.

Duhalde said Our Revolution counts more than 250,000 members across the country.

Melissa Byrne, a 2016 Sanders veteran, said many of the first team’s young staffers are also now armed with more expertise, after having worked on other campaigns and other political operations: “You have this whole crew of people who are a whole lot more experienced and confident.”

But there will also be difficulties for Sanders in 2020. A few weeks before he launched his second bid, POLITICO and The New York Times reported on alleged sexual misconduct and harassment in his 2016 campaign. Sanders has apologized to the women who said they were sexually harassed by other employees on his campaign.

Sanders, who is 77, will also undoubtedly face questions about his age. And the left-wing lane that he had virtually all to himself in 2016 will be more crowded. He won’t have the benefit of absorbing any anti-Clinton votes in 2020, either. And many of his opponents have said they support the policies that served as the foundation of his 2016 campaign, including Medicare-for-All, free college and the $15 minimum wage.

Sanders’ team is making the bet that his long-held beliefs on progressive issues will set him apart.

“People in many ways are rightfully cynical about politics,” said Weaver. “And the fact that somebody has been consistent, including when it was not easy and including when it was perceived by many in the establishment to be politically disadvantageous to have stood for those issues, I think signals to voters that one is truly committed to those issues and that the person will aggressively pursue those policies and not trade them away when it’s hard.”

From shuttering coal-fired power plants to fighting the gun lobby, obesity and Big Tobacco, Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropy has given away $6.4 billion and earned the love and respect of progressive-minded activists across the country.

The question is whether that goodwill is enough to fuel a Democratic presidential primary campaign.

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The network of Bloomberg Philanthropies recipients is vast, and it includes mayors throughout the country as well as grassroots climate-change, gun-control and education advocates and others who could form a ready-made army of campaign supporters, volunteers and paid staffers.

Bloomberg’s political team is beginning to press the issue. As the former New York mayor nears a decision on whether to run, his advisers — led by right-hand man Kevin Sheekey — are asking beneficiaries of his largesse if they’d be on board for his presidential bid.

“Kevin Sheekey asked me, ‘are you with us?’ And I unequivocally said yes,” said Rocco Landesman, a former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, referring to a top Bloomberg adviser.

“If you’re passionate about climate change, gun control or education or public health or the arts, he’s leading the charge. He’s the guy out there,” Landesman, a Broadway producer best known for “The Producers,” said. “How would that not translate into political support?”

Landesman, though, acknowledged that the moderate Bloomberg could face trouble in a leftward-shifting Democratic primary, even though he has been a leader on climate change and guns, two issues dear to progressive activists that would be a centerpiece of Bloomberg’s campaign.

Like others who have been involved in causes that received support directly or indirectly from Bloomberg, Landesman said that he never felt Sheekey “put the screws to me” to support Bloomberg, and that Bloomberg’s longtime charitable work was “authentic” and parallel to his political motives.

Bloomberg’s efforts to stop childhood drowning in Bangladesh, for instance, “doesn’t get him any votes in New Hampshire,” Landesman said.

The former New York mayor says he plans to make a decision about whether to run for president by the end of the month, capping a months-long, data-intensive exercise of poll-testing and organizing Democratic focus groups as part of a campaign to deny President Trump a second term that could exceed $500 million.

A Bloomberg consultant contends that the billionaire’s organizations have fielded calls from “thousands” of supporters eager to repay the favor of the philanthropist’s support over the decades.

Still, the conversations between Bloomberg’s team and others have created some awkward situations for those accustomed to operating in issue-based arenas.

When asked by POLITICO if he had spoken with Bloomberg or his team concerning a presidential bid, John Feinblatt, president of the Bloomberg-funded Everytown for Gun Safety, avoided the question by saying Bloomberg hadn’t announced and so he would “not get ahead of the facts. Let’s see where we are.”

Asked again about conversations he had concerning the topic, Feinblatt spoke about Bloomberg’s “gold standard” record on gun safety.

So is that a no? he was asked. “I’m trying to answer the question as frankly as I possibly can,” he replied.

One reason for the discomfort in discussing the blurred lines between Bloomberg’s philanthropic contributions and his political ambitions is that Everytown and other groups Bloomberg has supported don’t want to appear to undercut their mission by taking sides. They have a strong affinity for the billionaire but fear appearing to be a campaign tool.

Bloomberg’s advisers say the mayor himself recognizes the unique challenges presented by a presidential campaign — he’s reluctant to step back from his charitable work. That’s not the only issue that has surfaced: he’d have to step away from the Bloomberg media empire while its reporters cover their boss’s race.

Sheekey said Bloomberg’s efforts to avoid conflicts of interest would be akin to erecting a virtual Great Wall of China.

“There’s never been a Bloomberg campaign that didn’t start with a very good lawyer and a very good accountant,” Sheekey said.

Sheekey said there are people in at least half the states in the country who are ready to take a leave of absence to help out Bloomberg if he runs for president.

“Is there a network of people like that? Yes. Have we spoken to many members of that network? Yes. And may they take a leave of absence to work on the campaign? Yes,” he said. “Mike Bloomberg has hundreds of people around him who when, Mike Bloomberg says, ‘this is what we’re doing next’, I don’t have to call them. They call me.”

Even if a Bloomberg campaign could tap that network of supporters, his team is aware there are other hurdles that the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat would face in a primary and from progressive activists who reject his centrist politics or think he hasn’t done enough.

For instance, Bloomberg has contributed $218 million for clean-energy efforts that, among other results, have led to the closure of 282 coal-fired power plants. But he does not oppose, at least in the short term, other fossil fuel use — and that’s not good enough for activists like Mitch Jones, who directs climate and energy programs for Food & Water Action, an environmental group that fights corporate influences in the movement.

“Bloomberg’s reputation as a climate warrior is a bit overblown,” Jones told the Associated Press, calling him “a pro-fracking, pro-pipeline, pro-nuclear billionaire who favors half measures and false solutions because he’s more interested in protecting his friends in the C Suite than he is in stopping climate change.”

Bloomberg’s giving covers five major areas — environment, public health, government innovation, the arts and education — and last year totaled $787 million, making him the nation’s second-most generous philanthropist behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Through one of his biggest programs, the American Cities Initiative, Bloomberg has helped municipalities and activists grapple with everything from climate change to guns to obesity. The initiative is an outgrowth of Bloomberg’s time as New York City mayor and has helped sow goodwill with mayors and former mayors throughout the country, giving him possible entrée to a layer of local political support that conventional candidates lack.

Michael Nutter, who served as Philadelphia’s mayor when Bloomberg was New York City mayor, said Bloomberg is a master of “G.S.D. In private, that means getting shit done. In public, that means getting stuff done.”

Nutter, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, said he’s enthusiastically behind Bloomberg for president, whom he calls “mayor of the world.”

In the signature city of yet another swing state — Miami — former Mayor Manny Diaz sits on the board of Bloomberg Philanthropies and last week introduced Bloomberg at a fundraiser for immigrant rights where he said the country needs Bloomberg for president. Diaz, a top surrogate for President Obama’s campaigns in Florida, said he’s been encouraging Bloomberg to run as well.

“For him, I would pull out all the stops,” Diaz said.

Bloomberg’s advisers contend sentiments like that are the norm, not the exception, among those who have worked with his philanthropy and causes.

“There are literally hundreds of people. The truth is we’ve already heard from thousands,” Sheekey said. “They’re already phoning in.”