Democrats likely to face long Biden-Sanders fight
WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders signaled Wednesday his intention to battle on against Joe Biden, frustrating some Democrats who hoped for a quick resolution to their nominating fight even as the field continued to shrink with the exit of billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who finished third on Super Tuesday in her home state and has yet to win anywhere, was also weighing her future.
As vote counting continued around the country, the final Super Tuesday contest, in Maine, was settled with Biden declared the winner. That gave him 10 victories to four for Vermont Sen. Sanders, including California, which continued its tabulations in a process expected to last weeks.
The former vice president has experienced a 72-hour period unlike any in history, going from near political death to a thumping victory in South Carolina’s primary to a coast-to-coast winning spree that vaulted him into command of the Democratic contest.
It was not apparently anything he said or did differently. Rather, it was a solidifying sense among voters — especially after two of Biden’s center-left rivals, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, quit the race after South Carolina — that he would be the party’s strongest candidate against Trump in November.
In exit poll interviews across a dozen Super Tuesday states, conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of TV networks, a majority of voters said choosing a candidate who could beat the president was more important than finding one who agreed with them on issues. They backed the more moderate Biden overwhelmingly over Sanders despite a series of middling debate performances and a decadeslong history of malapropisms and other gaffes.
“The weaknesses of Joe Biden did not disappear,” said Peter Hart, who has spent decades strategizing for Democratic candidates and causes but has stayed neutral in the current contest. “They landed on Joe Biden for a simple reason, and that is because he’s a known and safe quantity.
“The story,” Hart said, “is not the candidates. The story is the voters. Beating Donald
Trump is the unifying force.”
Biden’s powerful showing propelled him past Sanders in the pledged delegate count, 566 to 501, though the number will change along with the vote totals. It takes 1,991 pledged delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot at Democrats’ summer nominating convention.
Sanders, who could have essentially wrapped up the contest with a commanding Super Tuesday performance, was undeterred by Biden’s surprising surge and their change in fortunes.
He released a flight of new TV advertising criticizing Biden’s record on Social Security and trade and allying himself with President Barack Obama. At a pugnacious news conference at home in Vermont, Sanders took fresh aim at Biden for accepting campaign contributions from billionaires and corporate interests, even as he said he didn’t want to make their differences personal.
“I like Joe. Joe is a decent guy and I do not want this campaign to degenerate into a Trump-type epic where we are attacking each other,” Sanders said. “That is the last thing this country wants. Joe has his ideas, his record, his vision for the future, and I have mine.”