Since the last time I wrote this article (which was around a month ago), the race for the democratic party nomination has fundamentally shifted so much that I’m not entirely sure where to start the explanation. I guess it makes the most sense to pick up from where we left off.
In the last article, I mentioned a total of 6 major candidates competing in the South Carolina primary, which was the first electorate up to that point that was majority African American. Joe Biden, who was the vice presidential candidate for Barack Obama, expectedly won the state. However, the way in which he won was completely unexpected.
Between the time I wrote the last article and the time South Carolinians voted, Biden received endorsements from prominent Black politicians and got a sudden surge in the polls. He ended up winning nearly half of the votes, which was a stunning win for a campaign that had just badly lost three states in a row.
Biden’s win was not without precedent, but what happened next certainly was. Within two days of the primary, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar both suspended their campaigns and immediately endorsed Biden. All of this maneuvering happened within 48 hours of Super Tuesday, which is the single day in which over 30% of the delegates are allocated.
Biden, who was previously expected to face a 100+ delegate lead after Super Tuesday, suddenly spiked up in the polls. Out of the 14 states that voted on Super Tuesday, Biden won 10 of them. While anticipating a 100+ delegate deficit on Sunday night, Biden had won a 70+ delegate lead. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg, who both failed to win any contests on that evening, both dropped out. This marked the beginning of the two man race: Biden versus Sanders.
Unfortunately, characterizing this as a “race” isn’t really fair anymore. The proper word for what happened next was “sweep”. Biden won 8 out of the 9 states that followed, thus essentially winning him the nomination. While he still remains far from the delegate majority, Sanders would need to start winning nearly all future contests by huge margins in order to close up his delegate gap. In fact, people have started calling for Sanders to drop out, so in three or four days, the two man race might become a one man race.
So, what happens next? Once Sanders drops, Biden will pivot towards the general election, where he will go against the incumbent Donald Trump. The two men will then have almost six months to continuously attack and rip at each other before the general election arrives in November. We are certainly in for a treat.
In all honesty, I thought this race would go on for a lot longer. I mean, in the previous article, I even mentioned the possibility of a contested convention, which would keep the race going until July!
Biden’s rise coupled with nearly every other candidate dropping out has certainly cleaned up the chaos, but it raises a pretty interesting question: why did this all happen? I certainly can’t give a definite answer for why Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out before Super Tuesday, Klobuchar seems to be the most likely pick to be Biden’s running mate. At a campaign rally, she accidentally almost said this.
As for Buttigieg, maybe he was offered something as well? I want to emphasize that this is just pure speculation. Other than Klobuchar’s slight reveal at that campaign rally, there aren’t any other sources.
Michael Doboli