The Latest: Klobuchar optimistic before New Hampshire vote

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The latest on campaigning for the 2020 election (all times local):

10:30 p.m.

At a rowdy event Monday at a Manchester bar, Amy Klobuchar made her final push for votes ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary. Amid chants of “Amy” and plenty of beer, Klobuchar argued she was the candidate who could unite the nation and bring decency back to the White House.

“It is time to cross the river of our divide and to get to a higher plane in our politics,” the Minnesota senator said. “The heart of our nation is bigger than the heart of this guy in the White House.”

Buoyed by a string of New Hampshire newspaper endorsements, an infusion of cash and some polls projecting a third-place finish, Klobuchar said she was sensing something happening for her campaign. The crowds were bigger at rallies Monday, she said, and the media, she joked, was turning up at every event.

——

8:45 p.m.

Progressive icon and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is urging New Hampshire voters to choose a candidate who will move the country forward, not “back to business as usual.”

Ocasio-Cortez warmed up the crowd on a college campus Monday night before Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders took the stage. The arena holds more than 6,000 people and was nearly full. Sanders says such turnout shows why he will win Tuesday’s primary. Sanders’ campaign says it’s the biggest event any candidate has held in New Hampshire this primary season.

Ocasio-Cortez says the Democratic party can take two paths: “One is a nomination that brings us back to business as usual, but business as usual was not working for working people.”

She didn’t mention any candidates by name, but former Vice President Joe Biden in particular has called for a return to the normalcy that predated the Trump administration.

——

8:15 p.m.

Democratic presidential hopeful Tom Steyer says he’s the best candidate to call President Donald Trump out for what he calls lying.

The billionaire climate activist said Monday night during a town hall event in Rock Hill, South Carolina, that he’s unafraid to take on Trump in a general election debate by saying, “No, no, no, no, Donnie, that’s a lie.”

Steyer jokingly told the crowd, “I don’t know if you guys decided to torture yourselves” by watching last week’s presidential debate.

A woman in the crowd responded, “That’s why we’re here,” to applause.

Some South Carolina voters have said they’re giving Steyer a second look after his performance in last week’s presidential debate. He’s had the state to himself this week as the rest of the Democratic presidential field stumps in New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections.

——

5:50 p.m.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is vowing not to give up on her presidential run as she faces increasingly bleak prospects in a state so close to her own.

Speaking to reporters aboard her campaign bus in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Monday, Warren said, “Look, I’ve been counted down and out for much of my life.”

She added: “You get knocked down, you get back up. And you keep fighting because it’s not about me, it’s about the people who are counting on me.”

Polls show Warren falling in New Hampshire, which holds its primary Tuesday and neighbors her home state. She’s refused to predict victory or call it a must-win, instead insisting, “It’s a very fluid moment in the primary.”

Warren added: “The best evidence of that is how good the predictions have been over the last year, who was supposed to be in this race today and who wasn’t. I think I wasn’t, and a lot of people who were supposed to have locked it up by this point are not here.”

———

3:20 p.m.

Elizabeth Warren is stressing that she’s been prevailing in fights that looked “unwinnable” all her life, as she revamps her message ahead New Hampshire’s first-in-the nation presidential primary on Tuesday.

The Massachusetts senator told hundreds of supporters at the opera house in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Monday that her mother told her she would never go to college, so she found a way to secure a debate scholarship.

She says many top Democrats saw the 2012 race against incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown as running into a “buzz saw.” After she jumped into it, she says she “got knocked on my fanny multiple times,” only to win rather comfortably.

Warren says many people see the election in November against President Donald Trump with similarly long odds. But she says, “This is about winning unwinnable fights.”

She added, “People think that folks with the money are always going to win. They don’t know what they’re up against. It’s folks with persistence who are going to win.”

———

2 p.m.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says a victory in the New Hampshire primary would put him on a path to capture the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders told a crowd at a college on Monday that he believes he has a strong chance of victory here as well as in the states that come next: Nevada, South Carolina and California.

“Not only is the whole country looking at New Hampshire tomorrow, but the world is looking at New Hampshire,” Sanders said. “What is New Hampshire going to do?”

Sanders says he’s hoping for the largest voter turnout in the history of the primary. Turnout in the Iowa caucuses was lower than expected.

It’s a different message than former Vice President Joe Biden is spreading. Biden and his campaign are downplaying the importance of victory in New Hampshire, saying that Biden will perform strongly in the next contests regardless. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign has also declined to set expectations of victory.

Sanders is spending the final day before the primary visiting two college campuses and speaking to volunteers. He’ll close out the day with a concert featuring the band The Strokes.

———

Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, “Ground Game.”