All of a sudden it’s a two-man race
Columnist Bill Press delves into the suddenly two-man race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination.
There’s only one word for it: “Unfreakingbelievable!” We’ve never experienced anything like the political upheaval we saw last week in the 2020 Democratic primary. Suddenly, everything’s upside down. Who’s in is out, who’s up is down, who’s done is now on top.
Joe Biden’s the Lazarus of our time. Back from the dead. It took him 33 years to win his first presidential primary. This week he won 11 in four days. A phenomenal comeback for someone declared political toast just a week ago.
Biden not only won 10 states on Super Tuesday, he won in five states where he didn’t campaign, spend a dime, or open one campaign office. Days before, the big question was whether Bernie Sanders might steal Massachusetts from Elizabeth Warren. Surprise! Biden stole it from both of them.
What happened? It started in South Carolina with the endorsement of iconic Congressman Jim Clyburn. Clyburn may have saved the Democratic Party, or maybe even the entire nation. But he definitely saved Joe Biden’s political career — catapulting him into a crushing win over Sanders in the Palmetto State that electrified the nation.
Then came the endorsements of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, whose importance cannot be overstated. It took a lot of courage to face reality and end their campaigns. It took a lot of humility to endorse another candidate. And their doing so had a huge impact, especially for Joe Biden in Minnesota. Beto O’Rourke also helped Biden in Texas. As will Michael Bloomberg’s endorsement in upcoming state primaries.
Quick side note: If only alsoran Republican candidates like Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul had shown the same courage by dropping out in 2016, we’d never have been stuck with Donald Trump.
With the help of those endorsements, two things happened for Biden. One, millions of Democrats who’d been sitting on the sidelines decided to get out and vote. Turnout surged in every state — except, inexplicably, Oklahoma. And, according to CBS exit polls, Biden won 49 percent of those late-deciders, who were fueled not so much by love of Biden as by fear of Sanders or fear of Trump.
Two, with only three days to go, Biden leapt from also-ran to front-runner. He ended up winning not only the vast majority of African-American votes, but — in states like Minnesota, Texas, and Oklahoma — winning back white, middle-class, and suburban voters who’d voted for Sanders over Clinton in the Democratic primary of 2016, but left the party for Trump in the general election. When the dust settled, Biden won 10 states. Sanders won four. Bloomberg won American Samoa. Not since Louis Quatorze has one man spent so much money for so little.
Super Tuesday changed everything. From an initial field of 24 very diverse candidates — men, women, black, white, Asian, Latino, younger, older — the 2020 Democratic primary is now between two old white men with two very different visions for the direction of the Democratic party and the nation.
Though they’d never admit it, Biden and Sanders agree on more than they disagree. They both champion universal health care, a living wage, eliminating student debt, making college tuition affordable, enacting tougher gun safety laws, leading the global fight against climate change — and, of course, goal number one, getting rid of Donald Trump. Yet they propose very different ways of getting there. For Sanders, it’s revolution: throwing establishment politics out the window and replacing it with bold, new, fundamental change. For Biden, it’s evolution: working within the system to bring about gradual change.
But, in the end, this contest is not about differences in policies. It’s about one issue only: Which candidate, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, has the best chance of beating Donald Trump. And, so far, evidence shows that Biden holds the winning hand.
Sanders touts his ability to inspire a wave of new, enthusiastic, younger voters. I wish. But that reality has not materialized. Yes, turn-out was up on Super Tuesday: compared with 2016, up 49 percent in Texas, 38 percent in Tennessee, and in Virginia an astonishing 70 percent. But that turnout surge came out for Biden, not Sanders.
It’s looking more and more like Biden’s the candidate who can motivate the greatest number of Democrats of all stripes to turn out and vote against Donald Trump. That’s the only issue Democrats should care about. Which is why I cast my Super Tuesday ballot for Joe Biden.