While the vote is still being counted in Californa, former vice president Joe Biden has taken a lead in the 14 states that voted on Super Tuesday and the total delegate count.
Following a rough showing for Biden in the first 3 states, where Sanders was able to hold a delegate lead after Nevada, Biden was able to pull ahead with a decisive victory in South Carolina. His victory there, in addition to the endorsement and dropping out of Senator Amy Klobachur and former mayor Pete Buttigieg, helped propel him to victory in many states on Super Tuesday.
All told, Biden won 10 states, Texas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Arkansas and most likely Maine, while Sanders only won Utah, Vermont, Colorado and California.
With Biden’s victory on Tuesday, it seems likely that he will be able to pull ahead from Sanders in future primaries, as his victory will increase his chances of winning more and more states down the line. And while Sanders is not out of the race yet, Biden’s win does point to a visible shift who is favored to go to the convention in July with a plurality of the delegates.
Following a terrible showing on Tuesday, former mayor Michael Bloomberg, winning only the territory of American Somoa, dropped out of the race in order to endorse Biden, leaving only Biden, Sanders and senator Elizabeth Warren as major contenders in the race. Though with Warren’s poor showing, winning no states and coming in third in her home state, it is unclear if she has any path to the nomination.
However following her defeat Warren has said she is still planning on staying in the race, although her campaign manager Roger Lau also sent out a memo, as reported by Politico, that “Last night, we fell well short of viability goals and projections, and we are disappointed in the results,” and “we are going to announce shortly that Elizabeth is talking to the team to assess the path forward.”
So it is unclear if Warren plans on staying in the race or not, but if she does, it will almost certainly be to the detriment of Sanders, as Warren is also running as a progressive, and will continue to sap away support from Sanders in future races as she did in Super Tuesday states like Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Texas.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr under licence (CC BY-SA 2.0)
