Biden’s shock Super Tuesday comeback slows Sanders as they barrel toward one-on-one race
Joe Biden’s monumental comeback in the Democratic presidential race continued on Super Tuesday, as he rolled up a string of convincing and unexpected victories over Bernie Sanders across the country and narrowed the primary to a two-person contest.
The former vice president’s landslide victories in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee, as well as surprising wins in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas, marked a swift turnaround for a candidate who was written off by some members of his party just a few weeks ago.
Biden’s performance displayed a broad coalition of African-Americans in the South, white suburban college-educated voters, and late-deciders that will lend more credence to his argument that he’s best positioned to defeat President Donald Trump in the fall.
Sanders lost some states Tuesday that he won in 2016, but carried his home state of Vermont, Utah, Colorado and the biggest delegate prize of the night, California, according to the Associated Press. But it won’t be known for days or longer how many total delegates he and Biden collect there.
After a disappointing showing in his first appearance on the ballot, Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the race Wednesday morning and endorsed Biden, further bolstering the former vice president’s position.
Here are six takeaways from the Super Tuesday results:
Biden’s Growing Coalition
Biden was always favored to win black voters. But a big part of his shock turnaround has been his sudden and unexpected strength with white voters — especially older white voters in the suburbs.
Exit polls showed the former vice president won the most votes among whites in several key states on Tuesday, replicating and even expanding upon the success he had with them in South Carolina. Their robust backing, combined with Biden’s massive support among black voters, created the kind of coalition that helped him to easy victories in places like Virginia and North Carolina.
“People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement,” Biden said at a Los Angeles rally. “We’ve increased turnout. The turnout’s turned out for us.”
Only weeks ago, Biden was struggling mightily, winning just 8% of white voters in the New Hampshire primary, according to exit polls. But his support has swelled since, winning 33 percent of whites in South Carolina and nearly half in Virginia, per exit polls.
His support was even higher among older white voters in Virginia, as he carried 70% of those 60 and older. And a turnout surge concentrated in the northern Virginia suburbs suggests that many former GOP and independent voters who have shifted to the Democratic Party since Trump’s election are coming out to support Biden.
Late endorsements from Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar helped Biden. And the feeling among some moderates that they needed to settle on a candidate to stop the surging Sanders might have contributed as well.
Biden’s broad strong support is at the heart of why a candidate left for dead only two weeks ago might now be the new Democratic frontrunner.
Sanders’ Limited Coalition
If Biden’s coalition is expanding, Sanders’s base of support is staying the same. And that’s an urgent problem for the Vermont senator in a two-candidate race.
Sanders, who won the popular vote in each of the first three nominating contests, hasn’t added new voters to his cause heading into Super Tuesday, forcing him to once again rely on his loyal but relatively narrow coalition.
While those supporters were enough to net Sanders victories in February amid a deeply fractured field, they’re no longer enough in a race where former rivals have dropped out and consolidated support behind Biden.
Among black voters, Sanders has struggled to make any inroads from the low level of support he received in 2016. In Virginia, exit polls showed Sanders winning just 16 percent of black voters.
Even more alarming for Sanders might be his inability to expand the electorate among young voters, a major promise of his campaign. In Virginia, Sanders won just 32% among first-time voters, 10 percentage points less than Biden’s support. First-time voters also made up only 22% of the overall electorate in the state.
Sanders’ core support is racially diverse and includes progressives of all types, meaning he can win delegates all over the map. And as he showed in Nevada, Sanders made serious inroads among Latino voters, support that should payed off in California.
But to defeat Biden, he’ll need to attract a wider breadth of support. And so far this race, he hasn’t been able to do that.
Free Media Wins Out
Biden spent less than a million dollars combined on TV ads in Virginia, North Carolina and Alabama. Bloomberg spent more than $21 million. And yet the former vice president still won each of them in a walk.
What proved much more valuable in a nationalized political environment: Surfing the wave of positive free media that poured over him in the three days since his romp in South Carolina.
Biden didn’t have the field staff planted on the ground over the past year that Sanders or even Elizabeth Warren did. He certainly didn’t have the hundreds of millions of dollars that Bloomberg had to air an arsenal of commercials and set up a massive campaign operation.
What the former vice president did have was familiarity with voters — and a comeback storyline that reassured the psyche of nervous Democrats who desperately wanted to back a winner.
This dynamic may not have been applicable to most of his rivals. Biden is by far the best-known candidate, given his nearly five-decade career and two prior presidential bids.
Hiring the most heralded staffers, raising heaps of money and charting hundreds of thousands of knocked doors make for alluring data points. But Biden’s pile of Super Tuesday triumphs demonstrate that none of those well-laid tactics matter as much as a sense of urgency and momentum — a lesson for future presidential hopefuls to mull over.
Bloomberg’s Path Never Materialized ...
Bloomberg’s unconventional campaign wagered that Biden would falter in the early states, providing a path to become the alternative to Sanders.
But after Super Tuesday, it’s clear that Biden has reclaimed the moderate mantle — and that the former New York City mayor was only getting in the former vice president’s way.
Bloomberg acknowledged as much Wednesday morning, ending his campaign and throwing his support behind Biden.
“Three months ago, I entered the race for president to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump – because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Biden did appear weak for much of February, losing the first three contests while Bloomberg had the Super Tuesday airwaves and campaign trail largely to himself. But the establishment wing of the party quickly rallied back to Biden after his momentous victory in South Carolina.
Despite unprecedented levels of ad spending, Bloomberg failed to cross the threshold to win statewide delegates in North Carolina, Virginia and several other states. He won the territory of American Samoa, but trailed far behind both Biden and Sanders in the delegate count.
... And His Debate Blunders Resonated
Bloomberg’s push to participate in the Democratic debates ended up being one the most consequential moments of the race. His bumbling performance in Las Vegas on Feb. 19 was the first critical look most Democrats had of him. While he stabilized somewhat in the Charleston, S.C., debate on Feb. 25, it wasn’t enough to undo the damage.
The early vote in California, the top delegate prize on Super Tuesday, provides some insight on how Bloomberg’s support tumbled. The Sacramento-based political publication Capitol Weekly surveyed those voting by mail early and found that Bloomberg hit his “high water mark” with those who had cast their ballots by Feb. 20, placing second with 20%.
Bloomberg’s support in California and nationally started to slip after that. And following the South Carolina primary, his vote share in the survey cratered. Biden’s resurgence is clearly a major reason Bloomberg’s struggles. But his downturn started earlier, and now he’s at a tremendous disadvantage in the delegate race after a night that was supposed to vault him into contention.
Winless Warren Persists
Another primary night went by with Warren still winless. To add insult to injury, the Massachusetts senator lost her home state.
Yet living true to her slogan, Warren persists, with plans to campaign in Michigan, Arizona and Idaho this weekend. It’s just become unclear exactly why, and to what end. Not only is she yet to win a single state, she’s yet to even place second anywhere.
Sanders’ losses in a string of states propelled some of his irritated backers to heap blame on Warren, a fellow progressive who drew double-digit percentages in Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma.
One theory is she wants to accrue as many delegates as possible in order to play a kingmaker role in a close contest between Sanders and Biden. Another is that she’s betting neither Sanders nor Biden will win a majority of the delegates, leaving her as the unity candidate in a chaotic convention. These are both highly unlikely scenarios.
The Sanders campaign has been reluctant to publicly call for Warren to step aside. After the Vermont senator’s Super Tuesday’s setbacks, that calculation may begin to change in the days ahead.
This story has been updated with Bloomberg’s decision to drop out of the race and new results.
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Join NowThis story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 9:05 PM with the headline "Biden’s shock Super Tuesday comeback slows Sanders as they barrel toward one-on-one race."
