Super Tuesday was held on March 9 in 14 states across the country, including Virginia. This year’s primary brought a new front runner in Joe Biden, and cleared up the muddy field of democrats hoping to win the nomination. In the Virginia Primary about 42% of newly registered voters went out to the polls and casted their vote.
Super Tuesday is the election day during the United States Presidential Primary season when the greatest number of states hold primary elections or caucuses. Just over a third of the total delegates are awarded to candidates in 14 states including big delegate states such as California and Texas. Joe Biden has raced to the front of the pack with a total of 566 delegates. Bernie Sanders has accounted for 501 delegates while Warren and Bloomberg have 61 and 53 respectively. The two big-delegate states were California with 415 and Texas with 228. They were split among the leaders in Biden and Sanders with Biden gaining a majority of 34% of the vote in Texas and Sanders gaining a majority of 33% in California.
There were four serious candidates vying for delegates on Super Tuesday and three by the time the day was over. Joe Biden won ten of the fourteen states holding primaries on Super Tuesday, capitalizing on his momentum in South Carolina just a few days prior. Biden won all of the southern states by a wide margin and surprised most with his strong outcomes in Minnesota, Texas, and Massachusetts. A couple of weeks ago, Biden was criticized for his lack of stage presence in the debates but a resounding win in South Carolina shifted the momentum in his favor. Another deal-breaker was Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out and then endorsing Biden. In particular, Klobuchar’s endorsement helped out tremendously considering her home state is Minnesota. Another key factor for Biden is the black vote. Biden is extremely popular among African Americans because he was former President Obama’s vice president. Bernie Sanders won the remaining four states of California, Utah, Vermont, and Colorado. As of now, it seems as though Sanders’s early-season momentum has slowed down but he did come out on top in the biggest delegate state in America, California. Bernie has an edge in the west coast states as well with younger voters. Vermont was an easy win for Sanders due to the fact that it is his home state and he overwhelmingly won two more west coast states which bodes well for him as the primary season continues.
The remaining two candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg didn’t win a single state but did acquire some delegates because the primary system does not win or take all.
“I think there were some big surprises, the most obvious being Biden’s performance but some of the more intriguing ones to me were Warrens poor showing in her home state of Massachusetts and Bloomberg’s campaign falling apart after all that money he spent,” said government teacher Mr. Tiller on Super Tuesday’s major and minor surprises.
Much like Biden a week before, Warren desperately needed to win her home state of Massachusetts to gain some momentum in the delegate count. However, not only did she not win Massahustes, she came in third place behind Biden and Sanders with only 21% of the votes. With her being unable to win any other state on Super Tuesday, her campaign is without a doubt sunken to the bottom of the ocean with no oxygen mask. Many political pundits are opening fire on her for not dropping out because of her similar views to Sanders. She has indeed stolen a small slice of delegates from Bernie but more than likely not enough to make a difference in the end. Bloomberg was not able to win any states and acquired a measly 53 delegates by the end of the night. Consider this, Bloomberg spent a total of 550 million dollars on his campaign and an average of 12.5 million per delegate earned. The next morning he dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden. In hindsight, maybe he should have invested more money into practicing for debates over TV ads.
Currently, the democratic field is coming into focus with two clear players in Biden and Sanders. As the convention gets closer, the likelihood of a contested convention is less and less by the primary. A contested convention occurs when the party fails to elect a candidate because one did not earn 1,991 delegates. When the number of candidates in the race gets smaller, so do the chances of a contested convention.
Mr. Tiller said, “Historically speaking, contested conventions are unlikely and it does not seem like it will happen. The party usually rallies behind a candidate by the time the race is over. After yesterday’s results, Biden is looking like that candidate”.
Another key factor in the race when voters are surveyed is which candidate has the best chance to defeat President Trump in the upcoming general election. According to surveys done nationwide, the majority of voters believe Biden has a better chance to defeat Trump than Sanders. One way he can make up ground where Clinton did not is with the working-class citizens in blue-collar states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Mr. Tiller said, “Biden has the best chance to regain those voters in working-class citizens, it was very close in 2016 so he can flip them because of his strong reputation with Obama. Obama did very well in the traditional working-class state of the midwest.”
After Super Tuesday the democratic field is clearer and the race to the nomination is heating up.
