This article was updated at 10:23 a.m. MST.
On Mar. 3, 14 states voted in the 2020 Democratic primary. This cycle’s Super Tuesday was accompanied by a massive shift in the front runner for the nomination.
Two moderate candidates dropped out of the race the weekend before Super Tuesday, one dropped out after and they all endorsed Biden. On Mar. 1 in South Bend, Indiana—where he had been mayor for eight years—Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced that he was suspending his campaign, and later endorsed former vice president Joe Biden. Buttigieg won Iowa’s delegates in February, but could not capitalize on that momentum in the next primary states.
A day later, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar suspended her campaign at a rally for Biden in Dallas, Texas. She endorsed the former vice president, citing a fear that the former front runner—Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders—would win the primary but lose in a general election to Donald Trump. She too could not capitalize on her momentum from a surprising third-place showing in the New Hampshire primary.
Former presidential candidate and Texas congressman, Beto O’Rourke, also endorsed Biden on Monday.
Endorsements from moderate heavyweights and formal rivals—as well as a strong showing in South Carolina—legitimized Biden, a candidate who did not impress in the early primary states. It is brash to attribute his victories solely to his endorsements, but his newfound success is surprising. Biden won 10 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia and secured 551 delegates.
In a statement to the Clarion, Dr. Joshua Wilson—political science professor at DU—discussed Biden’s unexpected results. He said, “[It was] a remarkable and surprising night for Joe Biden. It speaks to both the power of the party to signal to a receptive electorate, and to the majority of the party who are looking for who to coordinate behind instead of Bernie Sanders.”
The candidate who endorsed Biden after Super Tuesday was billionaire Micheal Bloomberg. After an abysmal showing, winning only four delegates in American Samoa, Bloomberg dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden. He spent more than half a billion dollars during his campaign, and dropped out only a day after he first appeared on any ballot.
Dr. Wilson commented on Bloomberg’s failure, saying, “The other really significant lesson from the night is how Bloomberg’s record-setting spending has led to very little in terms of delegates. This should give pause to those who simplistically think that money is all that matters in politics.”
Sanders—who many of Biden’s endorsees voiced concerns over—did well, but not as well as projected before Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out. He tallied wins in Colorado, California, Utah and Vermont.
Dr. Sara Chatfield—DU political science professor—asserted that Sanders was likely helped by the fact that Colorado has early voting and three candidates dropped out, including billionaire Tom Steyer, only a few days before Super Tuesday. She said, “In looking at returns, it seems clear that Sanders did best in the early vote cast before South Carolina voted… Colorado is already a good state for Sanders, but he was no doubt helped by the fact that we [Coloradans] vote by mail and thus many voters had returned their ballots well in advance of Super Tuesday.”
Those that voted early did not yet know that candidates would drop out and that Biden would get more momentum. “As a result,” Chatfield said, “Biden did very well in the Election Day vote and among voters who made up their mind in the few days leading up to the election.”
However, though Biden won six more states that Sanders, Sanders still walked away from Super Tuesday with a sizable amount of delegates: 456. Despite not being the front-runner, Sanders is still a viable candidate.
Neither of the other two candidates who are still in the race won any states. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren did, however, walk away with 53 delegates. After a disappointing showing, Warren dropped out of the race on Mar. 5. Once the frontrunner, Warren shaped many policy discussion throughout the campaign.
She announced the decision to her staff saying, “We didn’t reach our goal, but what we have done together, what you have done, has made a lasting difference. It’s not the scale of the difference we wanted to make, but it matters — and the changes will have ripples for years to come. We ran from the heart. We ran on our values. We ran on treating everyone with respect and dignity.”
Her endorsement is now highly sought after. Some have speculated that Warren would endorse Sanders. Sanders commented on this saying, “Elizabeth Warren is a very, very excellent senator, she has run a strong campaign, she will make her own decision in her own time.” He added that he was “disgusted” by the vile comments online attempting to bully Warren into endorsing him.
Hawai’i Senator Tulsi Gabbard walked away from Super Tuesday with one delegate.
Despite the shift in frontrunner, it is fallacious to conclude that there was only one winner on Super Tuesday. Dr. Wilson pointed this out saying, “In terms of how to read these results overall, as I tell my students repeatedly, thinking of these races in terms of winner-takes-all outcomes is misleading and problematic. So long as a candidate passes the 15 percent mark, they are going to win some percentage of the delegates in a state. Given that, you need to pay attention to the delegate count more than anything else.”
Considering that, the race seems to be between Biden and Sanders who now have a total of 566 and 501 delegates respectively. Gabbard has a total of one delegate. There are still three candidates and 34 states left to vote in the primary, and more shifts can be expected.
