Biden-Sanders race takes shape after ‘Super Tuesday’ primaries

A two-way race between former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders is taking shape after the so-called “Super Tuesday” primaries of the 2020 presidential election.

Biden, after a strong comeback in South Carolina’s Democratic primary late February that triggered a wave of big-name endorsements, rode on the momentum and has been projected to win the most states on Tuesday. 

Sanders also has gotten something to celebrate as he has been projected to win populous California, a state with the most pledged delegates to July’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

As a 77-year-old moderate political veteran, Biden has been seen as a winner in at least nine of 14 Super Tuesday states, according to projections by several U.S. media outlets.

Biden’s victories included Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Massachusetts, where he defeated Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren. 

 “It’s a good night,” Biden triumphantly told supporters at a rally in Los Angeles, California, on Tuesday night. “It seems to be getting better. They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing.”

David Axelrod, director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, called it an “amazing night no one would have predicted even days ago” in a tweet.  

Axelrod attributed it to Biden’s landslide victory in South Carolina, which was “intensified by timely exits and endorsements” of Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Sanders, a 78-year-old progressive and longtime Independent, has taken four states, including the biggest prize of the night in California. He also won Colorado, Utah, and his home state of Vermont. 

Speaking to supporters in Vermont, Sanders said his campaign has been “taking on the political establishment.” 

“We’re going to win because the people understand it is our campaign, our movement,” he said.

“What we need is a new politics that brings working-class people into our political movement.” 

Projections of a winner for Maine have not been announced.”After Super Tuesday, we are likely to have a de facto two-person race between Biden and Sanders,” Darrell West, director of governance studies at Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, told Xinhua.

Fights between the Democratic Party’s progressive bloc and its moderate group have dominated primaries since the beginning. -Xinhua