Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
DELEGATE DRAMA
Biden racks up a string of victories as Sanders appears to take Calif.
WASHINGTON —A resurgent Joe Biden swept to victory across the country Tuesday, scoring primary wins in the upper Midwest and African American strongholds in the South, in a dramatic offensive against progressive rival Bernie Sanders, who nevertheless ended the night with delegate-rich California in his column as he tried to tap into delegate-rich Western states to maintain his lead in the Democratic presidential contest.
The two Democrats, lifelong politicians with starkly different visions for America’s future, were battling for delegates as 14 states and one U.S. territory held a series of high-stakes elections that marked the most significant day of voting in the party’s 2020 nomination fight. California, the crown jewel of Super Tuesday with 415 delegates at stake, was claimed by Sanders.
The clash between Biden and Sanders, each leading coalitions of disparate demographics and political beliefs, peaked on a day that could determine whether the Democrats’ 2020 nomination
fight will stretch all the way to the party’s July convention or be decided much sooner.
It was increasingly looking like a two-man race.
“People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement,” a fiery Biden charged in California.
Sanders swiped at Biden from a victory speech in Vermont: “You cannot beat Trump with the same-old, same-old type of politics.”
He added: “One of us in this race led the opposition to the war in Iraq,” the Vermont senator declared. “You are looking at him. Another candidate voted for the war in Iraq.”
Mike Bloomberg’s sole victory was in the territory of American Samoa. The billionaire former New York mayor will reassess his campaign on Wednesday, according to a person close to his operation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
Elizabeth Warren had yet to post any early wins, and even in her home state of Massachusetts, she was locked in a three-way race with Biden and Sanders.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, opened the night as the undisputed Democratic front-runner. He claimed decisive victories in his home state of Vermont, Utah, and Colorado. Yet Biden scored wins in Warren’s native Oklahoma, and a swath of Southern states including Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas signaled he was cementing his status as the standardbearer for the Democrats’ establishment wing. In a sign of his strength across the country, Biden also won Minnesota, a state Sanders had hoped to put in his column.
Biden racked up the victories despite being dramatically outspent by Bloomberg, who poured more than $19 million into television advertising in Virginia. Biden, meanwhile, spent less than
$200,000.
A key to Biden’s success: black voters. Biden, who served two terms as President Barack Obama’s vice president, won 60% of the black vote in Alabama, where African Americans made up more than half the Democratic electorate on Tuesday. Bloomberg earned 25%, and Sanders won about 10% of African American votes, according to AP VoteCast, a wideranging survey of the electorate.
The Democratic race has shifted dramatically over the past three days as Biden capitalized on his commanding South Carolina victory to persuade anxious establishment allies to rally behind his campaign. Former rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg abruptly ended their campaigns and endorsed Biden.
Biden’s win in South Carolina, his first in the 2020 election season, rescued his campaign from the brink after three consecutive weak finishes last month.
Sanders, meanwhile, was predicting victory in California, the day’s largest delegate prize. The state, like delegate-rich Texas, plays to his strengths, given its significant factions of liberal whites, large urban areas with younger voters and strong Latino populations.
Across the Super Tuesday states there were early questions about Sanders’ claims that he is growing
his support from his 2016 bid.
Biden bested him in Oklahoma, though Sanders won the state against Hillary Clinton four years ago. And in Virginia, where Democratic turnout surpassed 2016 by more than 500,000 votes, Sanders’ vote share dropped significantly.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg was trying to look beyond the primary to the November election against Trump, who racked up easy victories in lightly contested Republican primaries across the country.
“We have the resources to beat Trump in swing states that Democrats lost in 2016,” he said Tuesday night while campaigning in Florida.
Warren was also fighting to be optimistic.
Facing a roaring crowd in Michigan, she called on her supporters to ignore the political pundits and predictions as her advisers insist she’s willing to go all the way to a contested convention in July even if she doesn’t claim an outright victory anywhere.
“Here’s my advice: Cast a vote that will make you proud. Cast a vote from your heart,” Warren declared. She added: “You don’t get what you don’t fight for. I am in this fight.”
The ultimate nominee must ultimately claim 1,991 delegates, which is a majority of the 3,979 pledged delegates available this primary season.