Rout piles pressure on Sanders to quit

Bernie Sanders appeared to be on the brink of ending his White House campaign yesterday after Joe Biden swept the board in the latest primary votes, to secure a commanding lead for the Democratic nomination.

Sanders’s campaign manager said that the left-wing senator would be ‘‘having conversations with his supporters to assess his campaign’’ after Biden comfortably won Arizona, Florida and Illinois.

The 78-year-old independent senator was due to vote on the latest coronavirus measures in Washington before retreating to his home in Vermont to consider his next move under pressure to quit to allow Biden to focus on beating President Trump.

Mike Casca, Sanders’s communications director, denied a tweet from a Bloomberg News journalist that Sanders was suspending his campaign. The tweet was later deleted.

The Sanders campaign appeared to suspend new advertising on Facebook yesterday and pulled a host of digital fundraising appeals on the platform.

Senior Democrats warned against a repeat of the long and acrimonious 2016 campaign, when Sanders fought Hillary Clinton all the way to the party convention in July and was blamed for turning many of his supporters away from voting Democrat in the presidential election.

‘‘The next primary contest is three weeks away,’’ Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, said in a statement. ‘‘Senator Sanders is going to be having conversations with his supporters to assess his campaign.

‘‘In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.’’

As the polls were closing on Wednesday Sanders gave a 25-minute statement that stuck to the coronavirus.

‘‘In this moment of crisis, it is imperative that we stand together,’’ Sanders said.

Biden, 77, effectively killed off Sanders’s remaining chances of reversing the course of the primary race with double-digit margins of victory in the three latest states, to make it 18 wins out of 23 this month.

There were still signs of a severe split between older and younger Democrats in Wednesday’s voting, however. Exit polls suggested that Sanders beat Biden with people aged 45 and younger by 63 per cent to 31 per cent in Illinois and 52 per cent to 39 per cent in Florida.

Addressing his supporters by live stream from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, yesterday, Biden renewed his efforts to win round his rival’s supporters. ‘‘Senator Sanders and I may disagree on tactics, but we share a common vision – for the need to provide affordable healthcare for all Americans to reducing income inequality to taking on climate change,’’ he said. ‘‘Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought remarkable passion and tenacity to these issues. Together, they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country.

‘‘So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you. I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do.’’

Biden’s victories in Florida and Illinois were routs. With almost all of the votes counted in Florida he had 61.9 per cent of the vote compared with Sanders’s 22.8 per cent. Sanders was closer to Michael Bloomberg in third place on 8.4 per cent than he was to Biden.

Bloomberg quit the race a fortnight ago but some people had voted by post or under early voting rules before then.

In Illinois, with almost all of voting districts reporting, Biden was on 59.1 per cent and Sanders on 36 per cent. In Arizona with 88 per cent of votes counted Biden was on 43.6 per cent and Sanders on 31.6 per cent.

David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former election strategist, declared the Democratic presidential contest over.

‘‘We know how this race is going to end now, we just don’t know when,’’ he told CNN. ‘‘These primaries are going to be stretched out now in ways we don’t even know.

‘‘So the question for Senator Sanders is, does it benefit the project of defeating President Trump for him to stay in this race simply to make a statement, or is it time to consolidate around Biden? There will be an awful lot of discussion about that in the next few days.’’

The next main contests have been delayed.

Georgia was due to hold its primary next Wednesday, with Biden hot favourite to win and complete a sweep of the southern states thanks to his strong support from black voters. It was put back to May 19.

Puerto Rico, the last remaining vote this month, on March 29, is preparing to switch to April 26.

Of the four votes due on April 4, Louisiana has postponed until June 20, Wyoming has scrapped the caucus element where people gather to vote in groups, while Alaska and Hawaii are still planning in-person voting but are encouraging postal ballots.

Wisconsin is going ahead on April 7 but Maryland has postponed from April 28 to June 2. Kentucky postponed from May 19 to June 23.

The turmoil caused by coronavirus meant that the fourth primary scheduled to take place on Tuesday, in Ohio, was cancelled abruptly and voting extended until June 2.

– The Times