2020 Vision: Super Tuesday shakes things up

As the dust settles after the biggest single day of voting for the Democratic primary contest,the field looks dramatically different than it did just days before. 

To begin, there are fewer candidates.Notable moderate challengers Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race before Tuesday,perhaps due to their mathematical lack of a path to the nomination after early state successes. Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg, joined by the early primary hopeful Beto O’Rourke, endorsed Biden on Monday night in Dallas, Texas.The mass-endorsement and appearances at Biden campaign events by Buttigieg and Klobuchar were seen widely as an attempt to unite the moderate vote and trip up the campaign of the then frontrunner Bernie Sanders. This consolidation of power by the moderate wing of the party served to boost Biden handily; after coming off a strong showing, the former vice president had his best night yet on Tuesday, winning 10 of the 14 states. 

A notable dropout in the wake of Tuesday’s delegate distribution was former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg’s candidacy was characterized by his poor debate performance and over $400 million ad campaign. The billionaire offered himself as a moderate alternative to Senator Sanders and a more viable candidate than Joe Biden. As Biden succeeded in South Carolina and Super Tuesday states, Bloomberg’s irrelevance in the race became clear. According to Politico, “As of late Tuesday, Mike Bloomberg was on track to win four delegates, which would mean that he paid over $100 million per delegate.” Bloomberg’s candidacy was premised on his supposed ability to unite the country, a notion rendered laughable by his performance on Tuesday. Perhaps the notable New Yorker’s failure to generate little more than a few weeks of buzz and positive polling should be comforting to those following the election closely; Bloomberg’s effort that many described as an attempt to buy the election woefully failed. One has to wonder though, would the massively funded campaign have fallen so flat had the man behind the money had an ounce of charisma? 

A notable figure remaining in the race despite the mathematical realities that arguably drove out Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The progressive fared poorly on Tuesday after performing similarly during the entire primary. She failed to win a single state and lost sorely in her home state of Massachusetts and her childhood state of Oklahoma. Some on the left see Warren’s persistence as an attempt to split the progressive vote and derail the previously successful campaign of Bernie Sanders. If she does not remain in the race until the Milwaukee convention, Senator Warren’s endorsement will have a significant effect on the race. Many see her as more ideologically similar to Sanders, but she may stand to gain politically from endorsing the Democratic Party establishment’s now preferred candidate – Biden. 

It is clear that Sanders and Biden will fight until the bitter end.