Joe Biden has now established himself as the frontrunner to challenge Donald Trump in the presidential election, as he far exceeded expectations on Super Tuesday, the biggest day of voting in the Democratic primaries.
Despite limited funds and a slapdash approach, Biden came from behind to win several Southern states, building on strong support among suburban and African-American voters. But he also reached far beyond his assumed base by beating Senator Elizabeth Warren, 70, in her home state of Massachusetts.
The results indicated that Democrats have concluded Biden, 77, is their best hope for defeating Trump. Although Barack Obama has yet to endorse his former vice-president, Biden has become the candidate of the Obama restoration. While Senator Bernie Sanders, 78, was predicted to win California — the biggest prize of the night — Biden took the next biggest, Texas.
Overall, he vaulted ahead of Sanders, his main rival, who had won the three earliest primaries. Sanders was hoping to gain a commanding number of the delegates who will choose the Democratic presidential nominee at their July convention in Milwaukee.
Instead, Biden came roaring back — galvanised by endorsements from his former opponents Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar — and convinced voters that the best challenge to Trump will come from the centre of the party. His performance will have come as a huge relief to many Democrats, who were worried that Bernie Sanders’s brand of socialism would be brushed aside by Trump in November’s election.
Rather than feeling any great love for Biden, many Democrats simply want the candidate most likely to prevent four more years of Trump. Biden is a reminder of a more consensual, mainstream politics, away from the extremes of the current President on the Right and Sanders on the Left.
Sanders turned on Biden last night, painting him as an establishment throwback, the relic of a best-forgotten past. “You cannot beat Trump with the same old, same old kind of politics,” he said.
A re-energised Biden argued that he, not the socialist Sanders, was the true revolutionary. “People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement,” he said.
The results validated his decision to bet everything on victory in South Carolina last week. His convincing win changed the energy of his campaign. In many states, he had little money to spend and no formal organisation, but suddenly emerged as the safest choice.
Over the weekend, the Sanders campaign issued a memo saying that the “stark” choice is now between Sanders and Biden. The next primaries are on March 10, in several states including Michigan and Washington. Then, on March 17, all eyes will be on Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Arizona.
Sanders’s campaign events have always been much livelier than Biden’s. His crowds are largely young and enthused by his plans to raise taxes on the rich, increase access to healthcare and offer free university education.
Biden’s rallies were dozy until the last few days. He hopes that he can carry last night’s momentum forwards.
At a rally in St Paul, Minnesota, on Monday night, Sanders said of Biden: “He’s just wrong on the issues. He’s just wrong with regard to his vision for the future.” He said Biden’s support for free trade had led to job losses.
Last night was also a big disappointment for former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, 78, whose only win was in tiny American Samoa. He has taken an unorthodox route through these primaries, waiting until yesterday’s votes to put his name on the ballot. He dipped into his personal fortune to vastly outspend all of his rivals, hoping that he could tiptoe through the wreckage of a vicious primary season.
His strategy appeared to have legs until his weak performances in two television debates. The real Mike Bloomberg came across as frail and crotchety — nothing like the swaggering Bloomberg shown in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of television ads.
He will have to decide if it is worth staying in the race until the July convention, but hopes that he can emerge as a compromise candidate if the bad blood between Biden and Sanders supporters continues. In a Fox News town hall event on Monday, Bloomberg dismissed Biden as a “legislator” rather than a leader and said that Sanders’s ideas were “crazy”.
Sanders has stoked the theory that the Democratic establishment is conspiring to deprive him of the nomination
Earlier this week, Bloomberg said: “The most likely scenario for the Democratic Party is that nobody has a majority and then it goes to a convention where there’s horse-trading and everybody decides to compromise. It doesn’t even have to be one of the two leading candidates. It could be somebody that had only a small number of delegates.”
But if Biden rolls into Milwaukee with a strong delegate lead, Bloomberg’s hopes will be dashed. Sanders has stoked the theory that the Democratic establishment is conspiring to deprive him of the nomination. On CNN on Monday, he said: “From day one we have been taking on the establishment, whether it is the corporate establishment on Wall Street, the drug companies, the insurance companies, the fossil-fuel industry, or the political establishment.”
That theory was repeated by Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, last night: “The media is hyperventilating about Joe Biden but everyone should remember that he is just as terrible a candidate right now as he was a few days ago. At the same time, establishment Democrats have ganged up to try to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, which is causing even more mayhem.”
Sanders has argued that he is the only candidate capable of mustering up the excitement Democrats need to defeat Trump, saying: “To defeat Donald Trump, we’re going to have the highest voter turnout in the history of this country and I think our campaign is uniquely suited to be able to do that.”
Trump made his now-customary pre-vote intervention on Monday night, by holding a rally in Charlotte in North Carolina, one of the Super Tuesday voting states. He was buoyant about the stock market rebound following the coronavirus crash last week. One of his key campaign messages in November will be on the strength of the economy during his presidency.
He taunted Biden for calling Super Tuesday “Super Thursday” and mixing up the states he visits. Yesterday, Trump tweeted out a Fox News compilation of Biden’s gaffes, adding: “WOW! Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s doing. Honestly, I don’t think he even knows what office he’s running for!”
He also went after Mike Bloomberg, tweeting: “Mini Mike Bloomberg can never recover from his incompetent debate performances. Also, as mayor he was very bad under pressure — a choker!”
When asked about Trump’s tweets, Sanders told the President to “stay out of the Democratic primary. Why don’t you do your job for a change as President? Stop lying. Stop running a corrupt administration. Pay attention to the American people, not just your own political aims.”
