Lloyd Green: ‘It’s a two-person race from here on out’
On Super Tuesday, Joe Biden demolished expectations. Biden scored a blowout in the south, fought Bernie Sanders to at least a draw in Texas, and garnered delegates in California. He even won in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren’s home state, without campaigning there. Biden’s strength was not limited to a single region.
The former vice-president also re-forged the coalition that propelled the Democrats to their victory in the 2018 midterms, with African Americans, women and suburbanites emerging as the core of his support. Donald Trump continues to galvanize turnout. Some things don’t change.
Sanders’ attempt at revolution hit a ceiling. Still, Biden would be ill-advised to ignore the Vermont senator’s demonstrable strength with Latino voters.
Looking back, South Carolina was a harbinger of what came next. Representative James Clyburn’s endorsement made a real difference. For Biden, 48 hours proved to be a lifetime and a lifeline. In the end, momentum trumped money.
According to reports, Mike Bloomberg is reassessing his campaign. All those hundreds of millions of dollars were spent for a win in American Samoa.
It will be days before the delegate count is final. The upcoming debate on 15 March will be crucial. Practically speaking, it’s a two-person race from here on out.
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Lloyd Green was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
Art Cullen: ‘Democrats are not itching for a revolution’
A surge of support from African American voters after Joe Biden’s blowout win on Saturday in South Carolina washed across America on Super Tuesday and lifted the former vice-president to the fore. Biden’s dominant victories in Virginia and North Carolina demonstrated his ability to build a coalition among minority, suburban and working-class voters essential to defeating Donald Trump in November.
Biden contested Bernie Sanders in Maine and captured Massachusetts after Sanders placed a big bet in Elizabeth Warren’s home state. Democratic voters are not itching for a revolution so much as they just want to beat Trump and restore some dignity to the presidency. It did not appear that Sanders would clean up in California as earlier polls suggested. Biden was running in a dead heat with Sanders in Texas – unfathomable just a week ago, with little money or organization.
What could Warren know that keeps her running? Bloomberg’s reason for running has evaporated with Biden’s stunning revival. The candidate Trump fears most – Joe Biden – is capturing the support of Democrats desperate for a winner.
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Art Cullen is editor of the Storm Lake Times in north-west Iowa, where he won the Pulitzer prize for editorial writing. He is a Guardian US columnist and author of the book Storm Lake: Change, Resilience and Hope in America’s Heartland
Malaika Jabali: ‘Joe Biden won, despite few obvious merits’
After capturing nearly 60% of the black vote on Super Tuesday, Joe Biden swept southern states and won the overall delegate count. The drama of Sanders overtaking him in recent months died down entirely, as Biden performed almost exactly as polls predicted about a year ago when he entered the race.
The most striking aspect of his success is how little it seemed to rely on any particular strengths of his own candidacy, and that raises questions about how less established candidates compete at all in future Democratic primaries. There was no impressive ground game: for over a month, Biden did not campaign in Super Tuesday states at all. Voters in South Carolina, who ushered in his subsequent wave of endorsements, chose him, despite saying they prioritized climate change, Medicare for All and reducing income inequality, which Biden has not campaigned on whatsoever.
The full consequences of having a Democratic frontrunner who leads a race with no clear merit of his own, beyond simply getting the right endorsements at the right time, are yet to be seen. But what remains clear is that black voters – who have myriad reasons for supporting Biden – will continue to tip the scale in Democratic races. And no candidate can afford to ignore them.
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Malaika Jabali is an attorney, activist and writer
Cliff Albright: ‘Black voters boosted Biden with white voters’
Super Tuesday was a big night for Joe Biden as he exceeded expectations. His support from black voters, which fueled his South Carolina victory, was also evident in other southern states such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee and strongest of all in Alabama, where he achieved over 70% of the black vote.
However, what was more surprising were his victories in some states that were previously thought to be more favorable to Bernie Sanders. This highlights what may turn out to be the greatest irony of this presidential primary season. Although the original premise of Biden’s campaign was that his strength with white voters made him electable, that strength did not demonstrate itself until after black voters gave him overwhelming support. All of a sudden white New England voters who showed no love for Biden two weeks ago in New Hampshire somehow decided to provide him with strong showings in Maine and Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren continues to struggle against the reality that while many voters like and support her policy positions, not enough of these voters are willing to elect a woman to be president (in spite of the fact that the country essentially did vote to elect a woman to be president four years ago). Nevertheless, while Warren’s success in the Nevada debate has not significantly changed her vote tallies, Super Tuesday provided evidence that her stop and frisking of Mike Bloomberg in the two most recent debates definitely helped slow his momentum and likely helped Biden.
Two major questions remain. First, as California results trickle in, how large will Sanders’ delegate lead be, and will it be enough to survive a remaining calendar that many feel favors Biden? Second, as the calls for Warren and Bloomberg to drop out of the race are likely to increase, will either of them agree to do so? Or will each continue to hang in, perhaps working off the assumption that the two frontrunners have weaknesses that could resurface and reverse the momentum that each has experienced? Time will tell.
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Cliff Albright is a co-founder of Black Voters Matter Fund
Benjamin Dixon: ‘Let’s be clear about the risks Biden poses’
On Tuesday night, southern states that will inevitably go to Donald Trump in the general election joined forces with centrist Democrats and older African Americans to help secure the nomination for a man who just confused his wife for his sister on national TV.
The consolidation of the moderate faction of the Democratic party was a masterstroke of political genius that nearly made Joe Biden unstoppable. If it weren’t for Sanders’ convincing victory in California and a close race in Texas the narrative around Biden would have shifted to “inevitability”.
And while we have tiptoed around Biden’s ailing cognitive faculties, the remaining voters need to understand fully what Super Tuesday might saddle us with:
Biden will face a Republican opponent who will unashamedly call him a racist because of the 1994 crime bill. Will it be hypocritical? Yes. But will that stop Trump from claiming it, stop his audience from echoing it, or stop it from depressing turnout enough for a Trump victory? No. All of these things come with Biden.
Joe Biden will face a campaign that has all of the advantages of incumbency, the bully pulpit, and the ability to set the national conversation around Ukraine and Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma. Will it be in good faith? Absolutely not. But will it stop Trump from using it to depress Democratic turnout? Not at all.
Finally, Joe Biden will face himself. Will he be able to withstand the onslaught of Donald Trump during a debate? Sure, Trump isn’t as sharp as he used to be. But I would offer to you that it will be far more easy for Donald Trump to remember his bigotry and hatred and deliver the lines that will motivate his base than it will be for Joe Biden to remember which woman is his sister and which woman is his wife.
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Benjamin Dixon is the host of The Benjamin Dixon Show