Sanders, Biden up attacks as head-to-head race takes shape
DEARBORN, Mich. — The Democratic presidential primary is down to two major candidates, and it shows.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are spending their first weekend as their party’s last top White House contenders increasingly taking aim at each other. Each wants to show he’s the best choice before six more states — Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington — vote Tuesday.
It reflects the new contours of a race that once featured 20-plus Democrats. An increasingly bitter matchup could endure for months as Biden and Sanders compete for the right to face President Donald Trump in November.
“We have a two-person race,” Sanders said Saturday in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with one of the nation’s largest Arab American populations. “And all over this country, people are asking themselves which candidate can best defeat Trump.
I have zero doubt in my mind that, together, we are the campaign that can beat Trump.”
Campaigning in St. Louis, Biden said he was the one to unite the party and the country, and he would do that by promoting an upbeat message.
“If you want a nominee who’ll bring the party together, who will run on a positive progressive vision for the future, not turn this primary into a campaign of negative attacks — because that will only re-elect Donald Trump if we go that route — if you want that, join us,” Biden said.
Winning, he added, “means uniting America, not sowing more division and anger.”
Sanders is clearer in drawing contrasts, arguing that no Democrat will win the presidency “with the same-old, same-old politics of yesteryear.”
That’s ironic given that the 78-year-old Sanders is actually a year older than Biden. But the avowed democratic socialist, who has served in Congress since 1991, says he’s bucked the establishment of both parties with decades with unpopular stands that now give him the credibility to lead a political revolution “from the bottom up.”
Sanders is pledging to increase Democratic turnout by drawing younger voters, minorities and working class people to the polls even though they tend to vote in lower concentrations than many other Americans. Strong support among Hispanics lifted Sanders to victories in Nevada and California, but Biden trounced him in South Carolina and throughout much of the Deep South that voted during last week’s Super
Tuesday. Biden especially ran up the score with African Americans.
Top advisers expect Sanders to finish strong in Washington. Still, he canceled a trip to Mississippi to focus on Michigan, Tuesday’s largest prize. He made a stop in Chicago’s Grant Park on Saturday afternoon and declared that he has a different vision than Biden, “And the American people are going to hear about it.” Sanders will spend the rest of the weekend in Michigan, while Biden is in Missouri and Mississippi.
Sanders said repeatedly that he and Biden are friends and that, if he’s not the nominee, he will support Biden against Trump. But, he added, “In the remaining months, I intend to make it clear what my views are and what Joe Biden’s are.”
Biden saw a surge of donor support after South Carolina and Super Tuesday, and his campaign announced that it was spending $12 million on a six-state ad buy in places voting Tuesday and the following week. It was his largest single advertising effort of the 2020 campaign.
He is using two television and digital ads, one promoting his relationship with President Barack Obama, the other a new effort to counter a Sanders attack on Biden’s past record on Social Security.
Sanders’ ad features a past clip of the former vice president saying, “When I argued if we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security.” Biden’s counter spot has a narrator saying, “Biden will increase Social Security benefits and protect it for generations to come.”