[King:] To the 2020 Presidential Race now, and the final sprint to Super Tuesday. Here's a look at where the candidates are today according voters in the 14 states, 14 states holding primaries on the biggest day of the Democratic nominating contest. More than a third of the party's pledged delegates are up for grabs tomorrow, and Bernie Sanders is looking to open a healthy delegate lead. Joe Biden cannot compete with the Sanders Organization. But he is hoping for a big bounce from his blowout weekend win in South Carolina. He is also hoping to win the backing of former rival Pete Buttigieg. Mayor Buttigieg bowed out of the race last night and two sources telling CNN he is now weighing a Biden endorsement. In his exit speech in South Bend, Buttigieg again making clear he sees Senator Sanders as the wrong choice.
[Pete Buttigieg , Former Presidential Candidate:] We need leadership to heal a divided nation, not drive us further apart. We need a broad based agenda that can truly deliver for the American people, not one that gets lost in ideology. We need an approach strong enough not only to win the White House, but to hold the House, win the Senate and send Mitch McConnell into retirement. That broad and inclusive politics that is the politics that we have attempted to model through this campaign that, I believe, is the way forward for our eventual nominee.
[King:] CNN's Jeff Zeleny joins us live now. Jeff, tell us more what you're learning about from the Buttigieg Campaign and these conversations with team Biden?
[Jeff Zeleny, Cnn Senior Washington Correspondent:] John, we know after Mayor Buttigieg made that speech last evening here in South Bend, Indiana, he had two very important phone calls. One was from Joe Biden, they connected and the Former Vice President congratulated him I'm told on a strong campaign and a good race. He also asked him for his support. And I'm told that Mayor Buttigieg said that he is essentially going to sleep on it. He's going to give it some time to think about what the best timing is for an endorsement like this. A variety of people around the Former Mayor's Campaign believe that at some point he will, indeed, endorse Joe Biden. But the question is will he do it in the coming hours before Super Tuesday? There is a mixed thought on this. The Biden Campaign believes this is setting up as a choice between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. They're not necessarily sure that an endorsement would help at this point, so that Biden Campaign also controls some of the timing of that. But look, I think it would help, and the reality here is that Joe Biden needs all the help he can get. So we will find out in the coming hours if he's going to do an endorsement before Super Tuesday or not. We simply do not know. We do know that the Former Mayor is on the phone right now with his campaign aides, he is thanking them for all their work. This is a process they have to get through. And of course all the acrimony just thinking back to between Buttigieg and Biden, they went after each other quite a bit. That's common in these races. Remember the acrimony from Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other campaigns. It never reached that level at all. So the reality here is Pete Buttigieg is not supportive of Bernie Sanders' policies, so the Biden would be a home for him. We just don't know exactly when that would be. As per the other endorsement Barack Obama did something he is not done at all over the weekend called Joe Biden and congratulated him. That he said he is still staying on the sidelines of this. He believes he is the unifying factor in all of these, John.
[King:] Biden would like that one more than Mayor Buttigieg but he's going to have to wait at least a bit longer. Jeff Zeleny, appreciate the reporting there. And let's talk about Super Tuesday. Buttigieg out I'll come back to Biden in a minute, but I want to start with Bernie Sanders. And we can go through each of the candidates over the next few minutes and go through where they are? Bernie Sanders has the lead at the moment with 60 pledged delegates. He was second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire, first in Nevada, second in South Carolina. He has spent about $17 million on 13 states on Super Tuesday. He has the next to Bloomberg he is the only one who matches him in terms of spending. So we can look at a map and you look at the delegates and if you're Bernie Sanders, you're looking to run it up big in California, the biggest prize on Super Tuesday. You're looking to run it up with a healthy lead, you hoping in Texas, the second biggest prize on Super Tuesday. North Carolina more interesting Joe Biden is competing there, but if you're Sanders you're still thinking you're going to get a decent haul of delegates if not a win out of North Carolina. Then his own state of Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine. Up at home in New England up there and there are other places as well. Minnesota Sanders is going there today it is Amy Klobuchar's home state. But when you look at this map, especially the big prizes Sanders is poised to get a big delegate haul. I guess the question is how big?
[Zanona:] And how big is the gap between him and Biden perhaps right? I think as map favors Bernie Sanders. He probably will come out with the most delegates, but is Biden able to keep it close or does he run away with it Sanders knows?
[King:] And to that point he does know Sanders knows Biden has a bit of a bounce coming out of South Carolina, so listen to this Sanders' rally where he wants to remind voters, maybe you're giving Biden a second look. Please don't.
[Sen. Bernie Sanders , Presidential Candidate:] Please do not forget Joe Biden voted for the war in Iraq. Joe Biden voted for a bankruptcy bill which hurt the working families of this country big time. My point here is not to just be negative about Joe. My point is to ask you all, what campaign is going to defeat Donald Trump?
[King:] Not a coincidence he gets tougher on Biden after Biden-
[Talev:] Now that he thinks he needs to be tougher on Biden again, right? There's been a lot of recalibration since the results Saturday night and the breadth of the results Saturday night in South Carolina. Look in a really huge state, the size of a crowded rally tells you nothing about anything. Momentum is important and the crowds are important, but in a massive state with like 35 million people or whatever, it's much more about how you're reaching people at home, on their TVs, in social media like the ad penetration is important, but there are other things that are important also. So I think we're going to see the Latino vote, be really an important factor in California and in Texas, and we're going to see whether Michael Bloomberg's bid to hit 15 percent thresholds in Congressional Districts all over Super Tuesday States has had an impact. On the one hand, it could take away votes from Biden, but on the other hand, it would take away votes from Sanders and that's really what the game that Sanders has to play again. So there are like a few different ways to watch these numbers, but the Latino vote is going to be important. Those huge populations in the two largest states in the country are going to be very important. And what Biden has to do, it seems to me, is work on those other states where the African-American vote can be very important, southern states and states where he may have be enabled to have more impact with less money. He has had no money to compete in places with like California on the air.
[King:] That's the issue. He is raising money now but he has had no money to compete really on Super Tuesday. And so let's take a look at Joe Biden and let's start with this. You just heard Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden gets a big one in South Carolina Sanders turns up the heat. Joe Biden gets that big win South Carolina and you see him here, he has 53 pledged delegates. That put him back in the hunt right? He almost caught up to Bernie Sanders in the delegate hub there. He was fourth in Iowa, very disappointing, 5 in New Hampshire, even more disappointing, but now at the moment you think he has some momentum. Second in Nevada, first in South Carolina, but to your point Margaret, only $1.5 million spent by the Biden Campaign his Super Pac even was missing as well in eight states. That's nickels and dimes, really. And so the question is when you look at the map, if you look at the map here he's in Texas today. Joe Biden hoping to do some business in Texas there is a big Latino population and a big liberal population, but you also have moderate and conservative Democrats in a big state like Texas. If you look at these southern states, Arkansas, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee I'm making a mess of the map here. Let me just come back and do it this way, draws the line up bigger. There are a lot of states in the south here where he is hoping like South Carolina. He can get African-American votes. Now he needs some wins, the challenge is to try to run it up in those other states to offset right? What they expect to be big Sanders win in California especially?
[Olorunnipa:] Yes, he needs to do very well in the south. He needs to replicate what happened with that coalition he built in South Carolina. African-American voters, a lot of modern white voters, some suburbanites, and he needs also have that coalition in some of the states where it's more competitive, North Carolina and Texas. And trying to build up his turnout among suburban voters, moderate voters hopefully late-breaking voters we've seen a lot of late- breaking voters in first 4 states that made up their minds in the final days of the campaign. You know if that continues tomorrow if there are a lot of late breaking voters that could help Biden. He could get a little bit of a bounce out of South Carolina. That's really what he has to hope for because he hasn't been on TV, he hasn't been spending a lot of money to get his message out there, so he has to hope for the earned media and media back the addition from South Carolina hopefully, for him, he's got to hope that will help him because he hasn't really had the money to compete yet.
[King:] And part of that, just as Bernie Sanders looks back at Joe Biden's vote for the Iraq War, thinks Joe Biden is down in the bath, Joe Biden urging voters now that he has the momentum out of South Carolina look that way. Urging Democrats, think about Bernie Sanders at the top of the ticket. Joe Biden making the case Sanders disagrees Joe Biden making the case Sanders at the top of the ticket would hurt Democrats down ballot.
[Joe Biden , Former Presidential Candidate:] He will have great trouble bringing along other Senators, keeping the House of Representatives winning back the Senate and down ballot initiatives. So I think it is a stark choice and it's not about whether or not we restore the soul of the Democratic Party, it's about restoring the soul and unite this country, the whole country.
[King:] I don't doubt that Biden believes this, and a lot of Democrats pass at this and Sanders disagrees, but is that the right argument to make in a primary? To not talk about you know talk about health care, talk about yourself and your record, issues and policies as opposed to, that guy is bad.
[Thompson:] Well, it's a very processed argument and it's one that Joe Biden has made from the beginning. I mean, this is a guy that started showing polls in his ads all the way back in August. So he's always been making these sorts of processing arguments, and whether or not they motivate voters, we're going to find out on Tuesday. The problem is he's so far behind on organization. There was a story just the other week where the day before California early voting, that Bernie Sanders' Office in Los Angeles was buzzing with activity, whereas Joe Biden's Office was padlocked, nobody there. He is way behind not just on advertising but also on boots on the ground. He is going to be relying completely on momentum and media.
[King:] He needs to try to come out of Super Tuesday somewhere in the ball park of 100 delegates down or fewer if it's much bigger than that, it gets hard. We're going to do more of this math as we go ahead through the program. This quick CNN programming note, an exclusive tonight right here on the eve of Super Tuesday one-on-one interviews with the Democratic Presidential Candidates. It's all live starting tonight at 8:00 pm Eastern on CNN. When we come back, we'll keep going through the candidates and the Super Tuesday stakes.