Biden clear to take on Trump as Sanders ends White House bid
SENATOR Bernie Sanders has ended his US presidential campaign after disappointing primary results, leaving Joe Biden as the likely Democratic nominee.
The Vermont senator’s announcement yesterday makes former vice president Mr Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee to challenge President Donald Trump in November.
“The path toward victory is virtually impossible,” Mr Sanders told supporters as he congratulated Mr Biden.
The former vice president is “a very decent man whom I will work with to move our progressive ideas forward”, he added.
Mr Sanders initially exceeded sky-high expectations about his ability to recreate the magic of his 2016 presidential bid, and even overcame a heart attack last October on the campaign trail.
But he found himself unable to convert unwavering support from progressives into a viable path to the nomination amid “electability” fears fuelled by questions about whether his democratic socialist ideology would be palatable to general election voters.
The 78-year-old senator began his latest White House bid facing questions about whether he could win back the supporters who chose him four years ago as an insurgent alternative to the party establishment’s choice, Hillary Clinton.
Despite winning 22 states in 2016, there were no guarantees he would be a major presidential contender this cycle, especially as the race’s oldest candidate.
Mr Sanders, though, used strong polling and solid fundraising – collected almost entirely from small donations made online – to more than quieten early doubters.
Mr Sanders amassed the most votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, which opened primary voting, and cruised to an easy victory in Nevada, seemingly leaving him well positioned to sprint to the Democratic nomination while a deeply crowded and divided field of alternatives sunk around him.
But a crucial endorsement of Mr Biden by influential South Carolina
Representative Jim Clyburn, and a subsequent, larger-than-expected victory in South Carolina, propelled the former vice president into Super Tuesday, when he won 10 of 14 states.
In a matter of days, his top former Democratic rivals lined up and announced their endorsement of Mr Biden.
The former vice president’s campaign had appeared on the brink of collapse after New Hampshire but found new life as the rest of the party’s more moderate establishment coalesced around him as an alternative to Mr Sanders.
Things only got worse the following week when Mr Sanders lost Michigan, where he had campaigned hard and upset Mrs Clinton in 2016. He was also beaten in Missouri, Mississippi and Idaho the same night and the results were so decisive that Mr Sanders headed to Vermont without speaking to the media.
The coronavirus outbreak essentially froze the campaign, preventing Mr Sanders from holding the large rallies that had become his trademark and shifting the primary calendar. It became increasingly unclear where he could notch a victory that would help him regain ground against Mr Biden.
Though he will not be the nominee, Mr Sanders was a key architect of many of the social policies that dominated the Democratic primary, including a “Medicare for All” universal, government-funded health care plan, tuition-free public college, a $15 minimum wage and sweeping efforts to fight climate change under the “Green New Deal”.
He relished the fact his ideas – viewed as radical four years ago – had become part of the political mainstream by the next election cycle, as Democratic politics lurched to the left in the Trump era.
Mr Sanders said his working-class appeal could help Democrats win back key states Mr Trump won in 2016, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
But as the race wore on, the senator reverted to his 2016 roots, repeatedly stressing he backs a “political revolution” from the bottom up under the slogan “Not me. Us.”
The path toward victory is virtually impossible