The clear winner of Super Tuesday was former Vice President Joe Biden. He won the South: North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Oh, and by the way, he won Texas as well. He won in the North: Massachusetts and Minnesota. Maine, with 91% of the vote counted, is still to close to call. And while he didn\u2019t win in the West, with Colorado decided for Sanders, and California likely to do the same: he did well enough in those states to stay close to the total number of delegates that Senator Sanders earned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In short, Joe Biden won Super Tuesday. He will likely have the delegate lead when all of the counting is done (which will be a while, California mail-in ballots aren\u2019t due into the boards of elections until Friday). And Biden did all of this, without a campaign staff on the ground in most of those states, and without a television ad anywhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it\u2019s all said and done, if Joe Biden earns the nomination, Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina is the reason. His heartfelt endorsement of Biden the Wednesday before the South Carolina primary changed the entire track of Biden\u2019s campaign. The former Vice President\u2019s overwhelming South Carolina victory, based largely on his strength in the black communities, altered the national perception. When Clyburn said, \u201cJoe knows us,\u201d he anchored Biden support. It carried over to the rest of the South, and obviously much of the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now we are looking at slogging it out, primary by primary, throughout March, April and May. Biden\u2019s lead will certainly not be insurmountable, and the dedication of Senator Sanders and his followers is legendary. If there\u2019s a way to make hard work pay off in votes, the Sanders campaign will find it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the calendar will not be kind to Bernie. Next Tuesday\u2019s contests: in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington leave only two states where Sanders has a solid chance of success. But in Michigan the latest polling shows Biden up by 6%, and Washington polling is pre-South Carolina. Even then Sanders may have to struggle. And the St. Patrick\u2019s Day contests in Alaska, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio the next week are even more likely to be \u201cBiden Country\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The end of March may find Biden with a seemingly insurmountable lead, but both candidates will certainly fight it out to the bitter end. The last six primaries: South Dakota, District of Columbia, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico; take place on June 2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg are faced with a serious question: do they continue in the campaign or not. Warren has years of work invested in her quest for the nomination, and heartfelt views and concerns about America. If she stays in, she will be, rightly or wrongly, constantly blamed for cutting into Bernie Sander\u2019s delegate count. Her only path forward to the nomination is as a compromise candidate in a brokered convention at Milwaukee in July, an outcome that is looking less likely then it did twenty-four hours ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Mike Bloomberg, well, as the Beatles sang, \u201cMoney don\u2019t buy me love\u201d. Divide the $500 million spent into the number of votes he earned on Super Tuesday \u2013 about $300 per vote. Bloomberg is a \u201cdata\u201d guy; I expect he will soon decide that his presence as a candidate is no longer viable. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me though, if we went through another week or so before he does. Cutting your losses at half-a-billion dollars has got to be tough to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conventional wisdom suggests Warren votes go to Bernie, and Bloomberg votes go to Joe. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s completely true, I think a lot of Warren supporters are backing a strong woman for President. I\u2019m not sure what direction they take when that is no longer an option. But I do think Bloomberg voters either go to Biden, or don\u2019t vote at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bernie Sanders has promised that a revolution of young and disaffected voters will rise-up to support his candidacy. But it hasn\u2019t happened yet. The huge turnouts in many of the Super Tuesday states weren\u2019t Bernie-backers; they were black folks and white suburban women. They didn\u2019t show up to vote for Bernie, they came for Joe. And that encourages more moderate Democrats to support Biden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is because, while Sanders preaches Democratic-Socialism, what he promises is a whole new voting block to defeat Donald Trump.\u00a0\u00a0That promised up swelling of Sanders supporters didn\u2019t show when he needed them on Super Tuesday.\u00a0\u00a0If he can\u2019t count on them in the primaries, then it raises huge concerns about defeating Trump in the general election.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden needs to organize.\u00a0\u00a0The momentum of South Carolina and Super Tuesday will only carry him so far:\u00a0\u00a0he requires staff on the ground, and ads on social media and television.\u00a0\u00a0The money will roll in, but \u201cstaffing up\u201d is harder to do.\u00a0\u00a0Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg can help, but if Bloomberg does decide to withdraw, there is an entire national campaign on site and ready to go.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But historically, regardless of the outcome in Milwaukee, Biden\u2019s victories on Super Tuesday will go down in American history, beside Harry Truman\u2019s \u201cDewey Wins\u201d Presidential victory of 1948 and John McCain\u2019s 2008 South Carolina turn around. To go from a campaign on life-support after Nevada, to a clear shot at the nomination today, is more than remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats, as Tom Perez said, need to \u201c\u2026fall in love, then fall in line\u201d. After Milwaukee, all of our eyes need to be on a single prize, removing Donald Trump from the Presidency, and saving our nation. Bernie or Joe, we need to be one party with one mission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"