Former VP Joe Biden (D-DE) won big on Super Tuesday, including decisively here in Minnesota. What does it mean?
Progressive (?) Kevin Drum pragmatically voted for Biden, not Sanders nor Warren:
And how did I vote today? I was not willing to vote for either Sanders or Bloomberg, so I wavered between Warren and Biden. In the end, though, I voted for Joe Biden. Policywise, I think he’s better than a lot of progressives give him credit for, and in any case it hardly matters since Republicans will allow very little of any Democrat’s policy to pass. On foreign policy, I think Biden learned a lot during the Obama years and is now, deep in his gut, much less interventionist than he used to be. I won’t deny that his gaffes and obvious cognitive slips aren’t concerning, but it’s also easy to overplay those—especially if you support someone else.
In the end, I couldn’t shake free of my central concern over Elizabeth Warren: that she’s too rigid in her beliefs to make the kinds of adjustments politicians have to make if they want to win a general election. I think she’d rather be right than president, and if she won the nomination that’s exactly what she’d be.
Drum in a later post:
I’m a little curious why I’m not seeing more people admit the obvious: Joe Biden is now virtually 100 percent assured of winning the Democratic nomination. He’s going to come out of Super Tuesday ahead of Bernie Sanders and there’s little reason to think he won’t maintain that lead. And if he’s anywhere close to a majority when primary season is over, the superdelegates will put him over the top easily. Right? I mean, does anyone think that Sanders will win more than 10 percent of the superdelegates if he rolls into Milwaukee with Biden anywhere close to him?
Getting in early on predicting Joe has the nomination. That’s what pundits do.
Jim Geraghty on National Review:
Sanders could still salvage the night by winning Texas and California. But overall, the story of Super Tuesday is the utter collapse in momentum for Sanders. The African-American vote has just come out in massive numbers for Biden in state after state, while there’s no sign of that massive wave of new and younger voters that Sanders promised. Bernie still has a good chance of winning the nomination, but the Democratic Party’s establishment pulled its act together at the last minute, and it looks like a long, hard fight all the way to Milwaukee.
For Biden, this night is near-miraculous. Democrats may well end up with some buyer’s remorse; Biden is the same guy who unnerved so many Democrats with his aging appearance, forgetfulness, and gaffes. But the party establishment has put its doubts aside and decided to ride or die with him. After a long, cacophonous noise, the Democratic primary is down to two extremely different candidates.
And CNN is reporting that Biden took Texas, too. It’s important to bear in mind that delegates are allocated proportionally, it’s not a winner-take-all format.
For Joe Biden, the good news is he’s suddenly in the lead in the overall delegate count; he has all the momentum; money is poised to pour in; and a variety of party leaders are rallying behind him. He couldn’t credibly ask to be in a better position right now, especially compared to where he was a few weeks ago. The bad news is, despite his gains, the former vice president may yet struggle to lock up a majority of pledged delegates ahead of the Democratic convention. What’s more, Biden will have a target on his back, not only in the upcoming debates, but also as Republicans turn their fire on him.
Ryan Lizza of Politico:
As for Sanders, Biden did not just defeat him across the country, he made a mockery of the senator’s main argument for his campaign. Sanders has repeatedly said he will turn out new disaffected voters, rally the working class to his cause and spike youth turnout to unprecedented levels. None of it has happened. Take his home state of Vermont. Turnout was higher there this year than in 2016, but Sanders won 86 percent of the vote then and just 51 percent this year.
Biden is also winning the working class. To the extent that new voter turnout is higher, it isn’t breaking for Sanders, and youth turnout hasn’t exploded. That’s the revolution Sanders promised. But 18 states have voted and it hasn’t materialized.
So far, there’s been no mention of how well union members have supported Biden. He has historically strong ties to most unions, so if he can rally the union membership to get out and vote, it could be a key to victory both in the remaining primaries and the general election, so long as his VP selection is acceptable to them.
For local voters and those who wonder about endorsements, statistical analysis siste FiveThirtyEight’s Nathaniel Rakich has a remark:
But Biden’s most impressive wins came in Massachusetts and Minnesota, where Sanders entered Super Tuesday as a slight favorite — and Biden wasn’t even the most likely candidate to upset him. Per our forecast, Biden had only a 1 in 5 chance of carrying each state, and yet he won Massachusetts by 7 points and Minnesota by a daunting 9. Both wins showed Biden’s ability to expand his coalition outside his usual comfort zone. Minnesota is a state that has relatively few voters of color (a key part of Biden’s base) and that Sanders won by 23 points in 2016. But the last-minute endorsement of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who dropped out of the race to support Biden, was apparently very influential. And in Massachusetts, Biden effectively kneecapped home-state Sen. Elizabeth Warren by usurping her former base of college-educated whites; Biden carried the upper-class suburbs that ring Boston.
Rakich’s colleague Geoffrey Smiley reinforces the point:
Minnesota stands out as the state where Biden benefited most from late deciders. The departure of Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar from the presidential race on Monday, along with her endorsement of Biden, helped push enough voters into Biden’s camp for the former vice president to win the state by 9 points — particularly impressive considering Sanders had a 2 in 3 chance of winning Minnesota when Klobuchar left the race, according to our model.
Keep in mind that President Obama, immensely popular with Democrats, did not issue an endorsement, perhaps feeling that it was not proper to interfere in a process which should measure merit, not big-name friends. But it’s also impressive that Senator Klobuchar could turn enough heads with her endorsement to push Biden to a commanding victory. Klobuchar has a strong and loyal base here in Minnesota, even more than I suspected. It makes me wonder if I’d want to see her take a post in a hypothetical Biden government if it was offered.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report:
Sanders’s pledge to bring new voters into his movement seems fairly empty in the results we’re seeing so far. His coalition has shrunk since 2016, not grown.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020
If true, Sanders will be doomed.
Far right conservative (and former NeverTrumper) Erick Erickson, in an email he’s spraying about, hoping to lure subscribers to his newsletter:
While the Democratic Party continues to drift left towards an eventual crack up of secular rich white voters against black and Hispanic voters, enough of their voters overall rejected a radical candidate. That is a good thing for the country. It is a recognition that the far-left socialist policies of Sanders and Warren are being rejected by minority voters within the Democratic Party. It is a recognition of the fact that a full government takeover of health care and other parts of the private sector are nonstarters. It is a recognition that Medicare for All will go nowhere. It is a recognition that the Bernie Bros are marginalized.
The nation needs two mostly-sane political parties. While the Democrats will never acknowledge the GOP is sane under Trump, those of us who know better know it is and should be thankful the Democrats appear to be rejecting their insane fringe.
That makes November a more difficult fight for the President. But at least it ensures, even if by accident, the country is spared a radical communist as a major party leader.
Erickson is another of those people who won’t take into account connectedness: did Biden win because, as Erickson sees it, the socialist approach to societal problems is insane and evil? Or did Biden win because he presented as someone who’s better equipped than his rivals to beat Trump in the general election? I’ve never much read Erickson, but given his religiosity, I suspect he sees the world in apocalyptic terms, rather than tactical or even strategic terms. We may still see a more socialistic medical system embraced by the Democrats in the future – but for the moment the Democrats see Trump as an existential threat, not to the Democrats, but to the nation. A socialist medical system, whatever its tradeoffs, isn’t in the cards until Trump is out.
And that Erickson thinks he somehow has a better viewpoint is, in itself, a little frightening.
Former Republican Jennifer Rubin of WaPo:
For Biden, Tuesday night is shaping up to be a triumph — a political comeback that happened so suddenly the polls could not keep up. Biden is far ahead of where he was anticipated to be in the delegate race. Bloomberg is flopping, and may well end the race after looking at the numbers. (A statement from his campaign did not promise to fight on.) The party of working people, minority voters, women and suburbanites — not “Corporate Democrats” — is coalescing around Biden with unprecedented speed. Sanders’s loud online presence, his attacks on fellow Democrats and the press and his proud display of his socialist label have not make him more popular than in 2016; in fact, he looks to be losing some of his base.
Ordinary Democrats have not followed the Twitter chatter and the pundits’ scripts. They seem intent on winning, not on making a point and saving the party and the country from the ravages of populism. We should breathe a sigh of relief that one party appears capable of keeping itself tethered to reality and to democracy.
Rubin forgets that Sanders is not a Democrat, but the point remains: attacking other Democrats drives away potential allies and voters. Having seen Sanders on Colbert, he has his charms, but there’s a certain arrogance which can be quite irritating.
Law Professor David Bernstein gives Sanders the sarcastic raspberry on The Volokh Conspiracy:
Part of Bernie Sanders’ pitch is that by motivated voters to turn out, he can beat Trump. Today, I and quite a few people I know who normally don’t vote in Democratic primaries turned out to vote for Biden or Bloomberg because we are so appalled by the prospect of Bernie Corbynizing the Democratic Party. I know other people who turned out to vote for Bernie because they think he’s Trump’s easiest-to-beat opponent. (I think that’s a mistake for the same reason it was a mistake for Democrats to root for or even help Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries.) So mazel tov, Bernie, you increased turnout.
Incidentally, Andrew Sullivan expressed similar concerns about Sanders being the American Jeremy Corbyn here. Perhaps he’ll be a little more relaxed about the future of the Democrats in his next column.
For me, it seems apparent that the black community, behind the leadership of South Carolina’s James Clyburn, came to a collective decision that Biden is the candidate to rally behind to defeat a President who they find quite threatening (and I agree). Through the surprisingly easy victory in the South Carolina primary, which was last Saturday, they signaled the rest of the Democratic primary voters that they considered Biden to be not only viable, but the best available; this in turn had to trigger thoughts and conversations in the voters in the Super Tuesday states.
I think we can see evidence for this in the deviations from expectations. My understanding is that prognosticators were giving all states of the Deep South to Biden, while Texas was inclined to Sanders, and California and all the northern states were Sanders territory, with the possible exception of Senator Warren’s Massachusetts. The actual results?
Biden won the Deep South and Texas. And Maine and Massachusetts. And, by a convincing margin, Minnesota.
Primaries are not where you vote your heart, with apologies to Greg Fallis, but where you select the candidate who can credibly carry a banner with which you can live, while beating the other guy. And while generally I figure “the other guy” is not going to be disaster, I have to make an exception for Trump, as anyone’s who has glanced through this blog will know. I feel fairly confident a President McCain or President Romney would have been annoying, but I would have had confidence that they would have an acceptable conception of the role and a competency with which I could live.
Trump doesn’t come close.
So, if Biden wins the nomination and then the general election, there should be gratitude extended to the black community, not only for selecting Biden, but for sparking the coalescence of the Democrats around any candidate. It’ll be interesting to see how that comes out – more members of the black community in high profile posts? Adjustments to national policies in order to attack problems plaguing the black community?
Reparations?
The future is intriguing. First, we have to see if Biden can ride the wave, and then sell himself to the Independents who’ll decide the next election. Good luck to him!
