2020 Democratic primary turns into a Biden-Sanders race

March 4, 2020 4:38 PM PT

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.

The departure of the former New York City mayor came quickly and with no regrets hours after Bloomberg was largely shut out in 15 contests, save for a win in American Samoa, in the campaign’s biggest and most significant day of balloting.

“I’ve always believed that beating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it,” he told about 1,000 campaign staffers gathered Wednesday in Midtown Manhattan. “And after yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.”

Bloomberg, who sunk a record sum — more than $660 million — into his futile White House bid, made clear he planned to keep spending to drive President Trump from office, and Biden welcomed the assistance in a tweet.

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 decades-long 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 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.”

But a senior Biden aide took umbrage at the advertising Sanders is airing, saying the TV spots were reminiscent of the kinds of attacks he lobbed in his unsuccessful primary fight against Hillary Clinton four years ago, which some Democrats blame for Trump’s victory.

“We’ve seen what kind of campaign Bernie Sanders runs and we saw the impact it had in 2016,” deputy campaign chief Kate Bedingfield told reporters.

At a brief Wednesday appearance at the W Los Angeles hotel, Biden urged undecided Democrats to join his resurgent campaign, sounding practically Sanders-like as he said he wanted “to build a movement” with “a progressive vision” to defeat Trump.

“We’re going to bring together all Americans — we showed that last night — regardless of your race, your gender, your disability, your ethnicity, Democrats, Republicans, independents, every stripe. I really mean that,” Biden said.

He declined to take questions, but did respond to one reporter who asked him about Sanders’ claims that the “establishment” was combining forces against the democratic socialist. “The establishment are all those hard-working, middle-class people, those African Americans,” Biden said. “They are the establishment!”

From here, the race barrels into half a dozen states that vote Tuesday.

The most significant, Michigan, will test the candidates’ competing appeal to working-class voters and offer a dry run of sorts for November, when Democrats hope to win back the state that was part of a “blue wall” of party strength in the industrial Midwest. Trump’s narrow victories in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania put him in the White House after he failed to win the national popular vote.

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Joe Biden reacts to Super Tuesday voting results at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Bernie Sanders with wife Jane at an election-night rally in Essex Junction, Vt. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

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Joe Biden with wife Jill and sister Valerie at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Bernie Sanders greets supporters in Essex Junction, Vt. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

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A protester is pulled off the stage as Joe Biden delivers a speech at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Joe Biden greets supporters after delivering a speech at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Bernie Sanders in Essex Junction, Vt. (Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

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Joe Biden speaks with supporters after his L.A. rally Tuesday night. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Bernie Sanders in Essex Junction, Vt. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

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Joe Biden at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Bernie Sanders pumps his fists in the air. The Vermont senator won four states to Biden’s eight on Super Tuesday. (Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

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Supporters of Bernie Sanders in Essex Junction, Vt. (Charles Krupa / Associated Press)

A week later, Democrats will vote March 17 in three states important to the general election: Arizona, Florida and Ohio; in between, the next Democratic debate will be held March 15 in Phoenix.

Both candidates face challenges ahead, with dozens of contests and several months remaining in the primary season.

A key question is whether Biden can win over the younger and more liberal voters — especially Latinos — who have responded to Sanders’ call for revolutionary changes in politics and the country’s economic system. Sanders continues to fare poorly among black voters, a crucial Democratic constituency, who delivered Biden a string of victories across the South.

For Warren, the question is more pressing still: whether to carry on at all.

In a staff memo issued Wednesday morning, campaign manager Roger Lau acknowledged that Super Tuesday’s results “fell well short of viability goals and projections.”

“We are obviously disappointed,” he said, adding that Warren was assessing what her next steps would be. “She’s going to take time right now to think through the right way to continue this fight.”

Sanders said at his news conference that he had spoken to his fellow senator by phone and was disgusted by supporters who expressed anger that Warren had not dropped out. She should “make her own decision in her own time,” Sanders said.

Rebecca Katz, a progressive Democratic strategist backing Warren, cautioned against assuming the race was suddenly over, now that Biden has pulled ahead and much of the party establishment has rallied to his side.

“We all need to take a deep breath before we draw any conclusions about how this race is going to go,” Katz said. “How many times already have people declared the race is over?”

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Sarah Woodard, center, is almost to the check-in desk as the line of voters grows on Super Tuesday at the UCLA Hammer Museum. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Students wait to vote at UCLA’s Ackerman Union. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Carrying signs that say “Voting for the first time,” women make their way to a Whittier voting location. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

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A mariachi band is on hand near the polling station at the Community Resource Center in south Whittier. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

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George Gascon, candidate for Los Angeles County district attorney, greets a family at Grand Central Market during lunch hour in downtown Los Angeles. (Gabriella Angotti-Jones/Los Angeles Times)

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People wait to vote at the UCLA Hammer Museum. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Mia Lim, 3, accompanied her grandmother Bertha Leon to vote at the Community Resource Center in south Whittier. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)

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A voter at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee’s Phoenix Hall in Los Angeles. (Jason Armond/Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

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Ramona Tolliver joins elated supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden at a rally at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center after news that Biden won in North Carolina and Virginia. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

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Alicia Tamstorf holds her 5-month-old while casting her ballot at the UCLA Hammer Museum, where the line to vote was long. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters wait in line to cast their ballots inside the Ace Hotel, on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Voters move through the line outside the Ace Hotel. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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The line outside the Ace Hotel vote center in downtown L.A. stacked up at certain times on Super Tuesday. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

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Election official Zahra Katimi, second from right, directs a voter to another polling place due to long lines at the polling place at Santa Monica Place Mall. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

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Sarah Woodard, center, waits to vote as the line builds at the UCLA Hammer Museum. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters at Second AME Church in Los Angeles look for other voting locations in the area as the wait time reaches over an hour. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

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Men linger on the sidewalk outside the polling place at the Union Rescue Mission on skid row in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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Tents line the sidewalk outside the Union Rescue Mission polling station. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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Election official Zahra Katimi, left, answers questions about filling out provisional ballots from voters as Matthew Tetreault, right, looks over his ballot before turning it in at the polling place at Santa Monica Place Mall. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

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A voter at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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The line extends out the door at the UCLA Hammer Museum polling place. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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A broken touchscreen is set aside at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters wait in Los Angeles at the Watts Labor Community Action Committee’s Phoenix Hall. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

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Sophia Criswell waits for her partner in the second floor elevator lobby after casting her ballot at the Ace Hotel on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters use the new voting machines at a polling station inside Wilshire Park Elementary School in Los Angeles. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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A voter in a mask at Wilshire Park Elementary School serves as a reminder of the coronavirus outbreak. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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A voter navigates a touchscreen at the Japanese American National Museum. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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People vote at Lincoln Heights Youth Arts Center in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters wait in a long line at the polling location at Santa Monica Place mall. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti waits with other voters before casting his ballot at Wilshire Park Elementary School. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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Voters enter the Japanese American National Museum to cast their ballots in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

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People make their way to the polls at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday morning. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)

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A lone voter casts his ballot at a vote center at the Boys & Girls Club of Ramona Gardens in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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A German shepherd named Dust waits patiently as Enrique Davalos navigates the electronic voting machine at a polling station set up in Iglesia Bautista Una Iglesia Familiar in Los Angeles. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren walks from her home to a nearby polling location with husband Bruce Mann in Cambridge, Mass., on Tuesday morning. (Steven Senne/Associated Press)

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An Elizabeth Warren supporter holds a sign from her window in Cambridge, Mass. (Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and his wife, Jane, arrive to vote in the Vermont primary near his home in Burlington. (Charles Krupa/Associated Press)

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People wait in line to cast their ballots at Boston City Hall. (Jonathan Wiggs / Boston Globe)

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Army veteran Bob Perry enters a polling precinct to cast a ballot in the Massachusetts presidential primary in Seekonk. (David Goldman/Associated Press)