Super Tuesday: A Two-Way Race Between the Democrats has Emerged

The night started off well for Joe Biden picking up early wins in Virginia and North Carolina, and the former VP never looked back. 

By the eve of Super Tuesday, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out and decided to endorse Biden at a rally for him in Dallas, TX. He also picked up endorsements from Beto O’Rourke, Harry Reid, Susan Rice, and other influential Democrats that surely helped his performance on Tuesday. 

He has officially won ten of the fourteen states that voted on Super Tuesday. 

Bernie Sanders expected a better night, hoping for wins in states like Massachusetts, Minnesota, Maine, Oklahoma, and Texas where Biden edged him out in all four instances. It is easy to imagine that if Elizabeth Warren decided to drop out and endorse Sanders, as the moderates coalesced around Biden, those five states could have made for a different story. The night was not completely lost for Sanders as he picked up the largest delegate prize of the night, California. 

Although it will take several days to allocate the official delegate totals from Tuesday, the race has shaped up to be a two-way race and virtual tie in delegates between Biden and Sanders. 

Although we have learned that Mike Bloomberg has officially suspended his campaign, there is still no official word from the Warren camp, who also flopped on what she hoped to be a big, revitalizing night for her. It has been reported that the Massachusetts Senator is assessing her campaign’s future and has spoken on the phone with Bernie Sanders. 

At a post-Tuesday presser in Vermont, Sanders said it is important to “respect the time and the space that she needs to make her decision.”

While we now have a real race on our hands between the two competing ideologies of the Democratic party, it is important to point out the strengths and weaknesses of support behind Biden and Sanders. For starters, Biden swept the South after coming off a big win in South Carolina just three days before Super Tuesday. It was no secret that Biden’s campaign was hanging on for dear life after the first three contests before this historic comeback.

 The endorsement of Biden from the highest-ranking African American official in Congress, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, could be seen as one of the most consequential endorsements in presidential primary history. 

CNN exit polls show that the endorsement was a critical factor for about 25 percent of Democratic voters in South Carolina, which had a significant impact on those that had decided whom to support in the final days before the election. 

Across the map on Super Tuesday, we saw a similar surge of late deciders backing Biden, who had minimal spending and virtually no ground game in many of these states. According to preliminary exit poll data from ABC News/Edison Research, Biden won at least 40 percent of the late deciders in 10 Super Tuesday states. Biden’s late rise ultimately cratered Bloomberg and led to unexpected wins over Sanders in a few of the aforementioned states. 

Sanders’ support from rural areas has seemingly vanished from 2016 and he has continued to struggle with the suburban and older Black vote. But because of his overwhelming support from Latinx and people under the age of 30, he was able to bring home decisive wins in Utah, Colorado and California. 

Although Sanders has consolidated the young vote, his promise of a political revolution has not entirely actualized as the turnout from the next generation seemed to sputter, while older voters are still hesitant to join the movement. 

Looking ahead, it seems that this race will be a hard-fought battle to the convention. Bernie Sanders has mentioned he is looking forward to a narrower field so that he and Biden can have a serious and fruitful debate on their policy and voting record differences. Six states are set to vote next on Mar. 10, which includes Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington. 

Biden looks well positioned in the two Southern states while Sanders seems to have the edge in the other four for now. The next Democratic debate will come on Mar. 15 where Biden and Sanders will enjoy the spotlight and be able to hash out their differences in a more substantive manner. 

Cover photo: Map of Super Tuesday 2016 from DonkeyHotey on Flickr