Tuesday was the biggest day for the Democratic primaries, with 14 states voting and a huge number of delegates at stake. So who won and who lost?
The former South Bend, Indiana, mayor ‘Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota senator ‘Amy Klobuchar’ dropped out of the presidential race and they both endorsed Joe Biden, all within about 24 hours on Sunday/Monday, before the results of Super Tuesday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden: Super Tuesday was a huge night for Biden, restoring him to front-runner status just three weeks after his poor permanence placing him in the fifth-place finish in the New Hampshire primary.
Biden rode a wave of momentum into Super Tuesday from his Saturday victory in the South Carolina primary. He won at least nine of the 14 states, and he could add a 10th with Maine, where the result is still in doubt.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was in Texas, where Biden won a victory that neither polls nor pundits had predicted.
Just as importantly, Biden ran up big margins throughout the South. He won Alabama by more than 40 points, Virginia by about 30 points, and Arkansas and North Carolina by roughly 20 points.
Strong support from black voters was the bedrock of his success in the South.
The big margins in turn helped Biden make major strides in the all-important race for delegates. —The HIll
African American voters: If Biden winds up as the Democratic nominee, he owes a massive debt of gratitude to black voters, who stuck with him through the doldrums of February when he often looked like he was only a day or two from dropping out, and propelled him to the massive comeback that began in South Carolina on Saturday and continued in places likes Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina on Tuesday. In each of those states, Biden won a majority of the black vote — and it carried him to decisive wins in states where other candidates (Bloomberg and Sanders, to name two) believed they had a path to victory. This isn’t a new phenomenon. In the contested Democratic presidential races of 2008 and 2016, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton eventually emerged victorious because they were the preferred candidate of a majority of black Democrats. —CNN
Bernie Sanders: First, the good: Sanders wins in Vermont, Utah and Colorado and he’s ahead comfortably right now in California with almost half of the votes counted. He seems likely to pick up delegates in virtually every state. Now for the bad news: The Sanders team has quite clearly hoped that Super Tuesday was the day on which he effectively seized the nomination, building a delegate lead substantial enough that no one could catch him. now, Sanders finds himself in a protracted delegate knife-fight with Biden. Which he could win! But is a very different path than Sanders was hoping to travel over these next few months.
LOSERs
Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg spent $234 million in the 14 Super Tuesday states. He does not appear likely to win a single state. Bernie Sanders losses to Biden in places like Texas, Minnesota and Massachusetts, which all seemed like certain wins just days ago. Sanders won in Vermont, Utah and Colorado and California. He seems likely to pick up delegates in virtually every state.
Elizabeth Warren not only finished third — behind Biden and Sanders — she loses in her home state of Massachusetts, but she drastically under performed the expectations her campaigns set for her in a memo on Super Tuesday released last month. Her campaign manager Roger Lau wrote in the memo, which was posted on Medium.
TV ads buy a lot of TV ads is one way to get voters’ attention. And it can be effective — especially when you have the airwaves to yourself.
