© AFP/ Mark Ralston, Mark FelixDemocratic presidential hopefuls Joe Biden (L) and Bernie Sanders (R)
The stage looks set for a drawn-out Democratic contest between an establishment centrist and a socialist agitator, after Super Tuesday voting saw Joe Biden sweep the south while Bernie Sanders claimed the top prize in California.
The biggest voting day in the Democrats' primary calendar, Super Tuesday brings in vote tallies from 14 states, as well as from American Samoa, and has a major impact on shaping the race to nab the party nomination.
So, what happened and what does it all mean?
Biden's (finally) in the gameAfter a poor showing in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, former VP Joe Biden's campaign had been on life support until his South Carolina primary win last week. That victory finally offered him the
'Joe-mentum' he needed heading into Super Tuesday - and it certainly seems to have made an impact.
There was more at work than just a handy win in the Palmetto State to set Biden up for Tuesday's success, however.
On the eve of the big day, two fellow moderates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, dropped out of the race and threw their support (and voters) behind Biden. Meanwhile, semi-progressive Elizabeth Warren, who holds little chance of securing the nomination, stayed in the race
in what Sanders' voters felt looked suspiciously like a party effort to split the progressive vote and damage the democratic socialist. By Wednesday morning, Warren was reportedly "talking to her team" about whether or not to continue on in the race.
The slew of new endorsements reportedly came at the urging of former president Barack Obama who was the
"quiet hand" behind the rapidly moving effort by centrist Democrats to coalesce around their man Biden. He also picked up endorsements from the likes of former FBI director James Comey and ex-CIA chief John Brennan, as well as former national security adviser Susan Rice and former UN Ambassador Samantha Power.
Revived by the wave of establishment approval,
Biden took
Alabama, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, shooting him into first place in the ever-changing and all-important delegate count. He also racked up surprise victories in
Minnesota and
Massachusetts and is expected to win in
Maine, too, though the final tally has not yet been announced.
Sanders secures top prize CaliforniaWith Biden riding high on a sudden spurt of voter enthusiasm,
Sanders missed his opportunity to secure a large lead in the delegate count. Instead of locking in a lead for the Vermont senator, Super Tuesday turned the Democratic contest into a two-man race - and a close one, at that.
Lower than hoped-for turnout by young voters in the southern states, who often favor Sanders, also seems to have hurt his campaign.
Still, as expected, Sanders managed to capture the night's top prize, winning easily in
California. He also pulled off victories in his home state of
Vermont, as well as in
Colorado and Utah, keeping him very much in the game.
Bloomberg's millions go to wasteIt was another bad night for former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his own cash to buy himself a place in the race. Yet, despite spending a whopping $500 million on ads, the idea of Bloomberg as president never took off with voters.
His disastrous showing on Super Tuesday was likely no surprise to anyone who witnessed his dismal debate performances, which saw him clobbered by other candidates. Bloomberg did manage to pull off a win in the US territory of American Samoa, however, earning five of six delegates on offer there. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard took the remaining delegate in her birthplace.
Ultimately, Bloomberg's strategy of pumping money into his campaign and skipping the contests in the early voting states did not pay off. With seemingly no way for him to bounce back (having never really bounced forward in the first place),
Bloomberg threw in the towel and dropped out of the race on Wednesday morning, endorsing Biden as he went.Voter suppressionAmidst all the celebrations and commiserations for candidates as exit poll numbers began to trickle in, it was another story entirely for voters, some of whom found themselves waiting as long as seven hours to cast their ballots.
Social media was awash with complaints of "voter suppression" as voters, particularly minorities, complained of broken voting machines and insufficient staff at polling stations. Voters were still casting ballots six hours after the polls closed at Texas Southern University in Houston, the
Texas Tribune reported.
The idea that minority voters are victims of voter suppression efforts is not new.
An
analysis published by the
Guardian on Tuesday found that
750 polling stations have been closed in Texas since 2012 - most in areas where black and Latino populations are growing fastest. In California on Tuesday, Sanders' campaign
filed an emergency injunction to keep polls open as long lines remained as the closing hour of 8pm approached.
From here on outNow that Super Tuesday is in the rearview mirror,
the race looks set to become a whole lot dirtier as Biden and Sanders battle it out to become the Democratic nominee to challenge Donald Trump for the White House in November.
With the weight of almost the entire Democratic and liberal media establishment behind Biden, it seems Sanders will need to step up his attacks on the former VP if he wants to convince more Americans that a Clinton-style Democrat is not best placed to beat Trump.
Ultimately, the race going forward between Sanders and Biden won't be one based on personality, as was the case between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 - but will be one based primarily on ideology, as Biden sticks to the centrist creed, while Sanders rallies his troops for socialist revolution.
Comment: Indeed, it looks like the Washington Establishment had finally woken up to the danger that Bernie might have actually taken the convention, and threw all its covert assets
against him.
Proven DNC liar Donna Brazile went on Fox News to 'protest too much' that the DNC would 'never' rig the convention results
against Sanders:
Brazile said she was "sick and tired" of Republicans commenting on the Democratic Party's process of selecting a presidential nominee and accused McDaniel of using "Russian talking points to sow division" among Americans.
In a fit of complete lack of self-awareness Killary chimed in,
chiding Sanders about 'following the rules'. The mind boggles. Still Twitter immediately called the Hill-bot out
"Let's follow the rules, we had rules last time, we have rules this time," the two-time Democratic candidate told ABC with a cackle on Tuesday, referring derisively to Sanders' complaints about superdelegates, the DNC-appointed convention VIPs who aren't bound by the will of their constituents.
The former first lady came out with a few more howlers, urging voters to "be more understanding and realistic about what it takes to get change in this big complicated pluralistic democracy of ours."
The candidates did themselves no favors, with both Biden and Bloomberg making very public gaffes. Biden
led off managing to insult two Iraq war veterans at once:
Bloomberg, not to be outdone, set a
bad example of behavior, right in the middle of the coronavirus scare:
US President Donald Trump cautioned his billionaire Democratic rival Mike Bloomberg about the gross-out unhygienic behavior on display in a TikTok video apparently posted by his campaign. Score one for the mega-troll. "Don't lick your dirty fingers," Trump tweeted at his adversary "Mini Mike" on Tuesday evening as voting results for Super Tuesday primaries began to surface. "Both unsanitary and dangerous to others and yourself!" © Twitter
In the meantime
media pundits and peripheral players cluttered up the landscape.
Activist and Bernie Sanders supporter Shaun King has sparred with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, after claiming she reported that the DNC is angling to prevent the socialist senator from winning the Democratic nomination.
King tweeted out to his more than 1 million followers that Maddow had disclosed that "senior officials" within the Democratic Party were pressuring billionaire-turned-presidential-candidate Michael Bloomberg to drop out so that "Biden would have an easier time against Bernie." He made the provocative accusations that the Democrats were in fact "interfering with the primaries to stop" Sanders.
King countered by posting a short clip of the network news host discussing the latest DNC gossip.
Rabid anti-Russian bit player Michael McFaul, of Magnitsky Act infamy,
compared Biden's "comeback" to Rocky Balboa. One wonders if he's angling to regain his spot in the Deep State machine?
McFaul, now a prolific twitterer and media pundit, asked his followers whether they remembered "a comeback in the history of American electoral politics as big as Biden in the last four days." While many comments were along the (expected?) lines of adoration for the gaffe-prone politician, some actually answered to the question.
How incredibly odd. So that's what 500 mil buys.