Biden consolidates his silent majority
The tables can turn so quickly in politics. A party that last week was literally freaking out about Sen. Bernie Sanders potentially locking up the nomination on Super Tuesday has this week coalesced around former Vice President Joe Biden, with voters across the country picking him as the centrist option and rivals rushing to out of the way.
What Biden accomplished. He got fourth in Iowa. He got fifth in New Hampshire. He got second in Nevada. Now, 11 days after his campaign appeared to lack a pulse, he’s been reanimated as the delegate leader in the race.
Joementum eclipses Bill Clinton’s notorious 1992 Comeback Kid moment. It is the “biggest, fastest and most unbelievable comeback in modern political history,” as CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote Wednesday.
How did Biden do it? What animated this remarkable surge may have more to do with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders than it does with Biden — although Biden’s unique strength in South Carolina and among black voters started the domino effect, pushing moderate rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar out of the race ahead of the first multi-state primary wave.
The driving force on Super Tuesday was a strong desire, particularly among older voters, to beat President Trump. Look at the numbers:
Turnout was up. In almost every state where it’s possible to compare primary results with 2016, more voters showed up Tuesday. The exception? Oklahoma, where turnout was down. We still don’t know about California, where mail-in ballots will keep trickling in for days.
It was up significantly in some states — more than 68% in Virginia, 40% in Texas and 37% in Tennessee. It was up less so but still up in states like North Carolina (15%) and Massachusetts (8%).
Older people dominated. The exit polls show voting was dominated by older people, as it usually is. Voters over the age of 45 were close to two-thirds of primarygoers everywhere (more than 60% in some places and closer to 70% in others).
Older people are more interested in beating Trump. Older voters, according to the exit polls, are more likely to say that beating Trump is more important than choosing a candidate that agrees with them on the issues.
So Biden benefited from all those older voters who would prefer to beat Trump and Sanders depended on a smaller pool of younger voters who wanted a candidate who agreed with them.
Where Sanders dropped. The senator from Vermont also lost support among independents and white non-college-educated voters vs. his 2016 performance. I wrote more about that here: 2020 Bernie Sanders is losing to 2016 Bernie Sanders.
Biden’s lane is clear. Suddenly the left lane is more crowded than the middle. All of the middle-lane Democrats have now dropped out (including, on Wednesday, the billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg), so it is Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts on the left and Biden in the middle for now. (CNN’s Lauren Dezenski, Gregory Krieg and MJ Lee report that Warren is assessing her campaign, which is code for figuring out how to get out elegantly and deciding who, if anyone, to endorse.)
Turns out you can’t buy votes. Re: Bloomberg, read this from CNN’s Fredreka Schouten: Bloomberg and Steyer spent three quarters of a billion dollars on the primary. Voters didn’t care.
Is there a silent pro-Biden majority?
Biden hadn’t even campaigned in a number of the states he won and has not generated nearly the buzz or excitement Sanders has.
But consider this: Sanders held a rally in Boston with more than 10,000 people on Saturday. Warren is from there. So is Bloomberg, originally.
Biden didn’t hold any events in Massachusetts — and he won the state.
In 2016, we talked about “shy” Trump voters — people who voted for Trump but wouldn’t acknowledge it publicly. Now we appear to be seeing Biden benefit from a wave of support from people who aren’t showing up at rallies or on Twitter but do show up to vote.
History time: President Richard Nixon used the term “great silent majority” when he appealed for calm in the face of nationwide protests during Vietnam.
At the time his administration was engaged in peace talks in Paris and he was looking to set a vocal minority against what he viewed as the mass of the country. And he used the occasion of the speech to disclose his secret peace dealings directly with Vietnam through the Soviets.
And so tonight – to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans – I ask for your support.
…
Let us be united for peace. Let us also be united against defeat. Because let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.
Watch this on C-SPAN from November of 1969.
Sanders admits he fell short on promise of expanding the electorate
The senator from Vermont has promised over and over again that he’ll get elected with help from young voters, who will benefit from his ambitious plans to uproot the health insurance and tax systems and create a much more generous government. So this was a telling moment at Sanders’ news conference Wednesday in Burlington, Vermont:
Have we been as successful as I would hope in bringing young people in and the answer is no, we’re making some progress, but historically everybody knows that young people do not vote in the kind of numbers that older people vote in. I think that will change in the general election but I am honest — being honest with you. We have not done as well in bringing young people into the political process. It is not easy.
Sanders is also about to unload on Biden
He also made clear at that news conference that he’s going to turn on Biden’s very long Washington record. There was actually a very long list of things Sanders mentioned as ripe for scrutiny:
- Accepting campaign contributions from billionaires
- Voting for the war in Iraq during the George W. Bush administration
- Voting for NAFTA during the Bill Clinton administration
- Voting for Wall Street bailouts during the financial crisis
- Voting to make it harder to declare bankruptcy during the Bush administration
- His willingness to work with Republicans who have pushed cuts to Social Security and Medicare spending
- His lack of support for nationalizing the health care industry
So it’s about to get real for Democrats. Biden faced scrutiny early in the campaign. But then the focus turned to Bloomberg and Sanders. The lens is about to swing back around.
Sanders said he’s going to be respectful. He likes Biden and he doesn’t want a “Trump-type effort where we’re attacking each other, where it’s personal attacks.”
Rather, said Sanders, “Joe has his ideas, his record, his vision for the future. I have mine, and I look forward to a serious debate on the serious issues facing this country. And I would hope that the media will help us do that, allow that kind of debate to take place.”
You already know what Republicans are going to do
Trump and Republicans, in a wash, rinse, repeat of 2016, have tried to suggest — echoing some Sanders supporters — that the process is rigged against Sanders.
And Senate Republicans are ramping up their investigations into Joe Biden and Burisma — the exact topic Rudy Giuliani and other allies were investigating on Trump’s behalf in Ukraine, setting in motion the events that led to Trump’s impeachment trial. Trump and his allies have repeatedly made unfounded and false claims to allege that Biden and his son Hunter acted corruptly in Ukraine, and Biden has said the actions he took had nothing to do with his son.
One more thing that happened Wednesday: Trump tweeted about his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who on Tuesday moved to a runoff in Alabama for the Senate seat he vacated to take the job with Trump — despite advice from the President’s allies to avoid commenting on the Sessions race, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported.
“This is what happens to someone who loyally gets appointed Attorney General of the United States & then doesn’t have the wisdom or courage to stare down & end the phony Russia Witch Hunt,” Trump tweeted, referring to the Mueller investigation into his 2016 campaign.
What are we doing here?
The American system of government has been challenged to deal with a singular President and a divided country that will decide whether he should get another four years in the White House.
Stay tuned as we keep watch over the Trump administration, the 2020 presidential campaign and other issues of critical interest.
