March 3, was a Super Tuesday for Joe Biden indeed! He won ten of 14 States that went to polls on that day, building his momentum after a resounding victory in South Carolina. But will he be able to carry his winning streak in the upcoming primaries?

Hi! I am Nivedita and in this episode, we will focus on Joe Biden’s remarkable comeback in the race to win the Democratic party’s nomination for the White House.

From when he announced his intension to run, former Vice President Joe Biden was seen as the frontrunner. But, Donald Trump’s impeachment trial brought Biden’s son Hunter’s financial dealings into focus, negatively impacting Joe’s campaign.  A string of poor performances in the debates did not help too. 

By the time the Nevada caucus was done, it looked like Bernie Sanders was running away with the nomination and Biden seemed down and out with only a handful of delegates, little money in the bank, poor organisational structure and virtually no presence in the Super Tuesday States. It is in this situation that Biden secured the endorsement of Representative Jim Clyburn. This changed the game –  Clyburn, a prominent leader of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, is a veteran politician and is well-respected among the African-American community in South Carolina. Almost 50 per cent of Biden’s voters in the South Carolina primary voted on the basis of Clyburn’s endorsement.

Biden won 48.4 per cent of the votes, earning 39 delegates. Sanders won only 19.9 per cent getting only 15 delegates. In a single day, Joe leapfrogged to second place in the total delegate count.

This victory was a shot in the arm for Joe Biden to the delight of the centrists in the party. This win also triggered massive consolidation among the moderates in the party. Candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race, hours before the big election.  Along with Pete and Amy, Beto O’Rourke and many Obama administration alums like Susan Rice and other top party officials endorsed Biden. There is also a whole lot of speculation that Obama finally got on the Biden bandwagon.

All this helped Biden will 10 states on Super Tuesday, which nobody expected. He consolidated on Black support, sweeping the southern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Oklahoma. Amy’s endorsement helped Joe win Minnesota. Surprisingly, he won Texas and Massachusetts, where Sanders was predicted to win. Sanders won only California, Vermont, Colorado and Utah – which was a devastating blow for his campaign.

With this consolidation, many conspiracy theories flooded the internet -- the most popular one being that the party “establishment” finally came together to destroy Bernie’s campaign. This theory has many backers, including President Donald Trump who tweeted, “They are staging a coup against Bernie!” He also shared an article from Fox News | which said that the Democrats were discussing ways to stop Bernie Sanders.

Having secured the Republican votes in the day’s primaries, Trump was live-tweeting his thoughts on the Dem’s race. He tweet a video montage of Biden’s greatest gaffes, he said: “WOW! Sleepy Joe doesn’t know where he is, or what he’s doing. Honestly, I don’t think he even knows what office he's running for!”

Even while voting was on, he urged the people of Texas and Oklahoma to not vote for Mike Bloomberg and even called him a “choker”. On Wednesday, Trump said: “The biggest loser tonight, by far, is Mini Mike Bloomberg. His “political” consultants took him for a ride. $700 million washed down the drain, and he got nothing for it but the nickname  Mini Mike , and the complete destruction of his reputation. Way to go Mike!”

Bloomberg withdrew from the race after a disastrous campaign, managing to secure a victory in American Samoa only.

On Elizabeth Warren’s poor showing, Trump tweeted: Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, other than Mini Mike, was the loser of the night. She didn’t even come close to winning her home state of Massachusetts.  Well , now she can just sit back with her husband and have a nice cold beer!

Warren suspended her campaign on Thursday, without even winning a single state.

With all these victories, Biden is now in pole position with 664 delegates, overtaking Sanders’ 573 delegates. So, is it all over for Bernie? Not quite.

According to MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki, the path to securing a nomination for Sanders is particularly difficult. Given Biden’s strength in the South, Kornacki predicts massive wins for Joe in Georgia, Mississippi and Florida.  He also says that Bernie  has  to win big in Washington, Idaho, North Dakota, Missouri and Michigan, which will go to polls on March 10. Kornacki explains, and I quote “If you are losing a state narrowly, you are not losing a ton of delegates, if you winning states big, you are gaining big on delegates.”

Before Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio go to polls on March 17, Sanders has to perform well in the debate on March 15. So far in the debates, Bernie has avoided taking on Joe directly but things will be different – he will be looking to show how different he is from Biden on various issues like the Iraq war and social security. Sanders’ campaign will be hoping for Biden to slip up in the debate, like he has done before. Next time, I’ll get you the latest information on the US presidential election. Stay tuned!

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