Democratic rivals unite in support of Biden
DALLAS — Joe Biden on Monday consolidated support from moderate Democrats as ex-candidates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg united behind the former vice president hours ahead of Super Tuesday voting.
The moment reflected deep concerns from the Democratic establishment that Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a polarizing progressive, is positioned to seize a significant delegate lead when 14 states and one U.S. territory vote today.
Klobuchar, a senator from Minnesota, suspended her campaign and endorsed Biden on Monday, a day after Buttigieg announced his exit. Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg, who had been Biden’s chief competition for the party’s pool of more moderate voters over the past year, declared their public support for Biden on Monday evening at a rally in Dallas. They were joined by another ex-candidate, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who also backed Biden on Monday.
“I’m looking for a leader, I’m looking for a president, who will draw out what’s best in each of us,” Buttigieg said. “We have found that leader in vice president, soon-to-be president, Joe Biden.”
Klobuchar began discussing the possible end of her
presidential bid with her campaign manager, Justin Buoen, on Sunday morning. But the candidate arrived at her final decision Monday morning, catching some staff members by surprise as they were still making plans for campaign events later this week and as her ad team was still making reservations. Her rally in Salt Lake City on Monday morning carried no indication that she had any intention of dropping out of the race.
In a call with her staff Monday morning, Klobuchar said she was proud of her “happy, scrappy campaign.”
“I’ve been so proud that people have been willing to pitch in and help each other,” she said, according to an excerpt from the call. “And so that’s why this is a really hard thing to do today. But I really step back and think, ‘What is the best thing for us, and not just me, but our whole team?’ And I keep trying to think of what is best for our country right now. So I decided that I’m going to be endorsing Vice President Biden today.”
Her exit means that her home state is up for grabs today, with its 75 pledged delegates. Sanders won Minnesota in 2016.
The endorsements for Biden come at a key crossroads in Democrats’ primary season, as the party struggles to unify behind a clear message or messenger in its bid to defeat President Donald Trump. As a field that once featured more than two dozen candidates continues to shrink, the choice for primary voters is becoming clearer.
On one side of the ideological divide stands Biden, a 77-year-old lifelong politician whose approach to governing emphasizes bipartisanship and more modest change. On the other stands Sanders, a 78-year-old democratic socialist who has for decades demanded aggressive liberal shifts that seek to transform the nation’s political and economic systems.
But the primary isn’t yet a two-candidate race.
BIDEN’S BACKING
Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, in particular, could create problems for Biden’s establishment appeal. The billionaire businessman, who will appear on 2020 ballots for the first time today, has spent more than a half-billion dollars on his presidential bid and wracked up many high-profile endorsements of his own.
And Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has struggled for delegates and momentum over the past month, has vowed to stay in the race until the party’s national convention in July.
On the eve of Super Tuesday, however, Biden received a significant boost after his resounding victory over the weekend in the South Carolina primary.
He posted his best two-day fundraising haul in more than a year, raising roughly $10 million over 48 hours. And the former vice president added to his considerable endorsement lead in recent days as more elected officials began to coalesce behind him. He has long been the favorite of many elected officials even as he struggled through the first three state contests of the year.
Biden’s new backers feature a who’s who of current and former Democratic officials across the nation: former Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada; former national security adviser Susan Rice; Senate candidate Mark Kelly of Arizona; former Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado; former Sen. Barbara Boxer of California; Rep. Jennifer Wexton of Virginia; and Rep. Gil Cisneros of California.
Perhaps the most powerful Democrat who hasn’t made an endorsement is former President Barack Obama, who has a relationship with most of the candidates and has talked with several in recent weeks as primary voting has begun. He spoke with Biden to congratulate him after his South Carolina victory, but he still has no plans to endorse a candidate in the primary at this point.
DOUBTS PERSIST
Sanders’ team shrugged off Biden’s success.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the candidates funded by big money and super PACs are coalescing behind Joe Biden, and that’s not a surprise,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior strategist. “I think it’ll add a lot of clarity to this race.”
And while Biden has gained momentum, not everyone in his party’s moneyed establishment is convinced.
Some major donors have preferred to wait until after Super Tuesday to decide whether to give their support to Biden. And even some of his more loyal fundraisers remain frustrated by disorganization within the campaign.
For example, the former vice president has struggled to raise money in Silicon Valley, where many wealthy donors prioritize organization and a data-driven plan. The inability of Biden’s team to demonstrate such capabilities pushed many donors toward his rivals, and others are taking a wait-and-see approach.
“We need to see what happens tomorrow, which is going to be very telling,” said Alex Sink, a Democratic donor and former Florida gubernatorial candidate who endorsed Bloomberg.
And Biden’s strategy for the coming days, which relies on media coverage and dispatching his new collection of surrogates, reflects a stark reality: Compared with Sanders and Bloomberg, Biden is understaffed and underfunded as he fights to transform his South Carolina victory into a national movement.
Biden announced that he raised $18 million in February, compared with $46.5 million for Sanders and $29 million for Warren.
Sanders has struggled to win over his colleagues in Congress but earned a high-profile endorsement of his own on Monday from Democracy for America, a national grassroots organization originally led by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean that boasts thousands of members across the county.
“The overwhelming support for Bernie we saw in our member vote should be a wake-up call to the broken, visionless, corporate Democratic establishment,” said the organization’s chairman, Charles Chamberlain. “Americans want fundamental change in Washington, not a return to the status quo.”
Some Democrats, meanwhile, bemoaned the lack of diversity in the shrinking field.
The National Organization for Women’s political action committee endorsed Warren on Monday. The group’s president, Toni Van Pelt, said she’s alarmed about the lack of attention paid to the female candidates, who have often had to defend their “electability.”
“It’s time to support a woman,” she said. “We want to make sure we’re not looking at all these old white men again.”
Meanwhile, the president threw some of his hardest jabs at Biden during a rally in Charlotte, N.C. Trump picked at Biden’s propensity for rhetorical stumbles on the stump, suggesting it was a sign of senility.
“I honestly don’t think he knows what office he’s running for,” Trump said. He speculated that if Biden wins the White House, “he’s not going to be running it. Other people are going to. They’re going to put him into a home and other people are going to be running the country, and they’re going to be super-left radical crazies.”
Trump allowed that Sanders “does have some enthusiasm, but much less than we have.”
Through four state contests, an Associated Press count shows 60 delegates for Sanders, 54 for Biden and eight for Warren. Buttigieg and Klobuchar have 26 and seven, respectively.
Candidates who drop out of the race keep the delegates they’ve won until each state party selects the actual people who will serve as those delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. At that point, delegates won based on statewide primary and caucus results are given to the remaining viable candidates. Delegates won based on results in congressional districts become free agents, who can support the candidate of his or her choice on the first ballot at the convention.
The first four states were always more about momentum than math. Super Tuesday states offer a trove of 1,344 new delegates based on how candidates finish. Only 155 delegates have been awarded so far.
Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples, Brian Slodysko, Jake Bleiberg, Bill Barrow, Will Weissert, Julie Pace, Seth Borenstein and Thomas Beaumont of The Associated Press; and by Nick Corasaniti and Alexander Burns of The New York Times.