The campaign of a little-known presidential candidate named Jason Palmer organized multiple events in American Samoa in recent weeks, including a town hall and beach cleanup day.<\/p>\n
And while Palmer only appeared virtually, the outreach appeared to pay off Tuesday: He won the territory\u2019s Democratic caucus, handing a loss to President Biden as he otherwise romped in the Super Tuesday contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what I\u2019m gathering from the community there, they just wanted to be heard,\u201d Palmer\u2019s campaign manager, Mario Arias, told The Washington Post on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Palmer got 51 votes to 40 for Biden, according to the Associated Press. Initially, the AP allocated four delegates for Palmer to Biden\u2019s two but later changed the delegate totals to three apiece.<\/p>\n
The island territory in the South Pacific Ocean is home to about 45,000 people \u2014 and Biden also lost there in the 2020 primary. Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, defeated Biden there in the only win of Bloomberg\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
Palmer is a Baltimore resident who describes himself on his campaign website as \u201can entrepreneur, impact investor, and philanthropist.\u201d He lists Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as places where he has worked.<\/p>\n
In his campaign, Palmer has played up his age \u2014 52 \u2014 claiming to be the youngest Democrat challenging Biden.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung people don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re being heard on the issues they care the most about,\u201d Palmer said in a November BBC interview, naming climate change as an example.<\/p>\n
Campaign finance reports show Palmer has loaned himself over $500,000 and spent the money on several traditional campaign expenses, such as ad buys and ballot filing fees.<\/p>\n
Palmer said Monday on X that \u201cWashington D.C. is long overdue for a president who will be an advocate for American Samoa,\u201d sharing photos of what he called a \u201cmeet and greet\u201d in Malaeimi, a village in the territory.<\/p>\n
His campaign manager said the campaign had a staffer on the ground who helped organize the events, which Palmer then addressed virtually. For example, the staffer rented out a restaurant where a few dozen people showed up for the town hall, Arias said.<\/p>\n
Palmer\u2019s victory in American Samoa caught the attention of another Biden primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,\u201d Phillips said Tuesday night, adding, \u201cAnd, Jason Palmer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The campaign of a little-known presidential candidate named Jason Palmer organized multiple events in American Samoa in recent weeks, including a town hall and beach cleanup day. And while Palmer only appeared virtually, the outreach appeared to pay off Tuesday: He won the territory\u2019s Democratic caucus, handing a loss to President Biden as he otherwise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}