Sanders refocusing his campaign after Biden’s super Tuesday

By Bill Barrow, Julie Pace, Steve Peoples and Will Weissert
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — His front-runner status slipping, Bernie Sanders refocused his Democratic presidential campaign on surging rival Joe Biden on Wednesday as the Vermont senator’s allies grappled with the fallout from a Super Tuesday stumble that raised internal concerns about the direction of his White House bid.

Sanders targeted Biden’s record on trade, Social Security and fundraising just hours after billionaire Mike Bloomberg suspended his campaign and Elizabeth Warren confirmed she was privately reassessing her future in the race. The dramatic shifts signaled that the Democrats’ once-crowded nomination fight had effectively come down to a two-man race for the right to face President Donald Trump in November.

Sanders declared himself “neck and neck” with Biden as he faced reporters in his home state, Vermont, one of just four states he captured on the most consequential day of voting in the party’s 2020 primary season. Biden won 10 states, assembling victories that transcended geography, race and class.

“What this campaign, I think, is increasingly about is, Which side are you on?” Sanders said.

The progressive candidate lobbed familiar attacks against the former vice president’s record but ignored supporters’ calls to be more aggressive and insisted his campaign would avoid any “Trump-type effort” that included personal criticism.

“I like Joe. I think he’s a decent human being,” Sanders said. “Joe and I have a very different vision for the future of this country.”

Biden told reporters he would unify the country and, without naming Sanders, knocked the senator’s frequent contention that he is beholden to an elite party establishment.

“The establishment are all those hard-working people” who voted on Tuesday, Biden told reporters in West Hollywood, California.

Elected officials and leading donors rallied around Biden after his Super Tuesday romp. Top Democrats have long been skeptical of the 77-year-old lifelong politician’s political strength but raced to unite behind him to blunt Sanders’ rise.

After suspending his campaign, Bloomberg became the fourth failed Democratic presidential contender this week to endorse Biden. Like the growing chorus of Democratic officials, Bloomberg called Biden the best chance to defeat Trump in the general election.

Warren’s future was uncertain.

Sanders confirmed that he spoke to his progressive ally earlier in the day, though it was unclear whether she would endorse him — or anyone else — should she leave the race. Warren didn’t win a single state on Super Tuesday and finished in third place in her home state of Massachusetts.

A resurgent Biden, meanwhile, was poised to finish Super Tuesday with more delegates than Sanders — a stunning shift. Sanders’ team had hoped he would finish the night more than 100 delegates ahead of his next closest competitor. He’ll likely finish dozens of delegates behind once all the votes are counted.

Biden’s allies sought to quickly capitalize on his success and take on Sanders. Biden campaign co-chairman, Rep. Cedric Richmond, blasted Sanders for suggesting that the Democratic establishment was colluding against him. Richmond said Biden is earning his votes.

“I just did not know that African Americans in the South were considered part of the establishment,” the Louisiana Democrat said, noting that Biden’s overwhelming support among black voters gave him wide delegate gains in Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia, among other states.

The Sanders campaign announced it would begin airing three new campaign ads across states holding the next series of primary contests on March 10 and March 17: Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Washington state.

One new ad features archived footage of former President Barack Obama praising Sanders. It’s a not-so-subtle attempt by the Vermont senator to undercut Biden’s frequently spotlighting his closeness to Obama.

Despite the aggressive ad buy, there was new evidence of internal frustration with Sanders’ strategy, which some believe has not been tough enough in courting high-profile endorsements or attacking Biden.

Sanders prefers to focus his criticism on the former vice president’s record on key issues, declining to lean into more divisive attacks that will almost certainly come up in a prospective general election match-up against Trump.

For example, there has been internal discussion about highlighting Biden’s role in the 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy. As the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden allowed an all-male Senate panel to grill Anita Hill, who had accused Thomas of sexual harassment.

Sanders has largely avoided the subject.

Roseann DeMoro, a key Sanders ally and a former president of National Nurses United, said Biden’s strong showing on Super Tuesday “caught people off guard.” Sanders’ struggle, she said, was likely tied to his “gentle” approach.

“Is Bernie too gentle on the Democratic Party? I think he’s a gentleman, and they are not,” DeMoro said. “Bernie’s a statesman, and he’s up against sharks. He needs to call people out for who they are.”

Moumita Ahmed, co-founder of the independent group Millennials for Bernie, was also disappointed in Tuesday’s outcome.

“I was thinking Bernie would do way better,” she said, adding that the campaign needs a more effective strategy to connect with African Americans. “I would like to see a reassessment of how the campaign is run.”

From his social media platform, Trump worked to fan the flames of growing frustration within Sanders’ camp. The president amplified his long-running argument that the Democratic Party would move to stop Sanders from winning the nomination.

“The Democrat establishment came together and crushed Bernie Sanders, AGAIN!” Trump tweeted. He also called Warren “selfish” for staying in the race because it “hurts Bernie badly.”

Biden’s strong finish punctuated a dramatic turnaround in the span of just three days when he leveraged a blowout victory in South Carolina to score sweeping victories in 10 states that cemented his status as the standard-bearer for the Democrats’ establishment wing.

The former vice president showed strength in the Northeast with victories in Massachusetts and Maine. He won delegate-rich Texas in the Southwest, Minnesota in the upper Midwest and finished on top across the South in Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas — in addition to Oklahoma.

Sanders scored the night’s biggest delegate-prize in California but won just three other states: his home state of Vermont, as well as Utah and Colorado.

Biden racked up his victories despite being dramatically outspent and out-staffed. His moderate rival Bloomberg, for example, poured more than $12 million into television advertising in Virginia, while Biden spent less than $200,000.

With votes still being counted across the country, The Associated Press has allocated 566 delegates to Biden, 501 to Sanders and 61 to Warren. The numbers are expected to shift as new states report their numbers and as some candidates hover around the 15% vote threshold they must hit to earn delegates.

The ultimate nominee must claim 1,991 delegates, which is a majority of the 3,979 pledged delegates available this primary season.

Coalition at a crossroads: Can Sanders grow beyond his base?

Sen. Bernie Sanders has promised to build a coalition broad enough to bring nothing less than a political revolution. Elections across the country on Super Tuesday showed where he’s falling short.

For all his early success in the Democratic primary, including his California victory on Tuesday, Sanders is struggling to expand his support beyond his core base. AP VoteCast surveys show he’s failing to bring in African Americans, women, suburbanites, older and college-educated voters in numbers he’d need to secure the nomination. And for all his plans to draw new Democrats to the polls, there were few signs Tuesday that his movement is behind increases in turnout.

“It is not easy,” Sanders said Wednesday, as he acknowledged he wasn’t drawing enough of his core coalition voters — young people, Latinos, liberals — to the polls. “What we are trying to do is unprecedented. We are talking about a political revolution.”

Sanders’ loss in Texas, a fast-growing and diverse state he hoped to win, demonstrated some of the biggest challenges. The 78-year-old senator won about two-thirds of voters under 30 there and he beat former Vice President Joe Biden with voters under 45 altogether, according to AP VoteCast. But that only takes you so far when a majority of voters are 45 and older.

Sanders also beat Biden handily with Texas’ Latinos, nearly one-third of the vote, but Biden maintained his even bigger edge with African Americans and drew about evenly with Sanders among whites. Meanwhile, Sanders showed no particular strength in the state’s sprawling suburbs and watched Biden edge him out with women.

The age gap could be problematic in upcoming primaries that increasingly look like must-wins for Sanders. He needs to draw more older voters to his side, while also bringing out his younger supporters at even higher levels than before.

“Several of the big states in the Midwest coming up — Missouri, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio — they tend to be older states,” said William Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “The issue with Bernie’s coalition is they’re iffy with turnout.”

The demographic setbacks have been bruising for Sanders. His campaign has spent months trying to improve his standing with key groups, such as African Americans, mindful that those voters contributed to his loss to Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Sanders has seen only middling progress. In some states, he’s managed to give Biden a challenge with younger blacks, but not enough of those voters are casting ballots to make a difference.

Sanders’ solution to this coalition math problem has been to try to bring more of his voters to the game. But Tuesday’s elections in Virginia and North Carolina showed little evidence that’s happening. There were obvious signs of the sort of enthusiasm Sanders often discusses — new voters drawn to the process by a sense of urgency and a desire to change Washington. In Virginia, a full 500,000 more voters cast ballots Tuesday compared with the 2016 Democratic primary.

But the increased turnout isn’t helping Sanders. His vote share dropped from 35% in 2016 to under 25% — and his raw vote total rose by fewer than 50,000 votes. Biden alone earned about 200,000 more votes than Clinton did four years ago.

In North Carolina, Democratic turnout was up by 180,000 votes from 2016. Sanders walked away with 100,000 fewer votes in 2020.

Sanders’ base in these states — and across the country — has been remarkably consistent. In addition to young people and Latinos, Sanders garnered support from people who felt left behind financially. He tends to pull in support from men, people without college degrees and liberals.

In some places, this coalition has been able to yield a victory. He banked victories in Nevada, Colorado and California, all states with sizable Latino populations. In California, where about 30% of Democratic primary voters were Latino, VoteCast showed about half of them went to Sanders. In Colorado, where 13% of Democratic voters were Latino, he won a solid 42% of their votes.

But Super Tuesday showed some enduring weaknesses with three other groups of Democratic voters: women, suburbanites and college graduates.

Women make up a decisive majority of Democrats and any potential nominee will likely need to win their vote. But Sanders has struggled to best his rivals with women. In Texas, women slightly favored Biden over Sanders. In Virginia, Biden beat out Sanders among women by more than 2 to 1.

Nor does Sanders have a steady foothold in the suburbs, where the bulk of likely voters in November happen to live. He fared reasonably well in the suburbs of California, Colorado and Texas. But his support was minimal in most other states. He won just 27% of suburbanites in Minnesota, compared with 41% who went for Biden.

He has also faced difficulty in attracting college graduates, a group that is increasingly drawn to the Democratic Party during Donald Trump’s presidency. This vulnerability was clear by the crushing defeat in Virginia. College graduates made up more than half of that state’s primary voters. He only managed to win 21% of them. About half went with Biden.