Biden strikes back on Super Tuesday
Former US vicepresident Joe Biden won nine of the 14 states that voted in the Super Tuesday Democratic nominating contests, in a stunning comeback that started last week in South Carolina.
Senator Bernie Sanders, the front-runner before the Super Tuesday contests kick off, won three states, including California - the biggest prize of the night.
“It’s a good night, it’s a good night,” an elated Biden told supporters at a campaign event in California, reminding them of pundits declaring his candidacy dead. “We are very much alive, make no mistake about it. This campaign will send Donald Trump packing.”
Sanders sounded optimistic, too, at a rally in Vermont, his home state, where he pitched his campaign as the one that could beat President Trump and not his rivals, drawing stark contrast between himself and them on politics and key issues such as health care and trade deals.
Senator Elizabeth Warren did not win a single state, not even her home state of Massachusetts. She finished third. Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg managed a win only in the US territory of American Samoa to show for the millions he has spent on his campaign. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, the fifth candidate in the fray, barely registered her presence.
The US election is scheduled for November 3.
Biden started the night with a massive victory in Virginia, a key swing state that plays a crucial role in presidential elections, and went on to win North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee,
Minnesota, Massachusetts, Alabama and the prize state of Texas. He also led in Maine, but the results are not yet in.
Sanders won in his home state Vermont, Utah, Colorado and, according to projections, California.
This race is more than about winning states. Unlike the Republican primaries system of winner-takes-all delegates, Democrats split up delegates among the candidates (only those who cross the threshold of 15% of the votes polled) per the proportion of votes won. The target is 1,991 delegates of the 3,979 pledged delegates. A third of them, 1,357 delegates, were up for grabs in the Super Tuesday contests.
With no or low possibility of any of the candidates wrapping up the contests before the conventions, talk has started about a contested convention in which 3,979 pledged delegates will vote to the elect the nominee in the first round. If there is still no winner, 771 super-delegates will join the voting in the second round.
The former US vice-president finished the Super Tuesday with an overall tally of 453 delegates, 71 more than Sanders’s 382. Warren stood at 50 and Bloomberg at 44. Gabbard has just one, in her birthplace American Samoa.