Onetime frontrunner Joe Biden has now won his first primary. Biden won with 48.4% of the votes, with Bernie Sanders getting 19.9%, the only two above the 15% threshold for delegates. Biden is predicted to get 34 delegates, and Bernie Sanders 11. Here’s a detailed breakdown of how delegates are earned at the state, congressional district, and state convention level.
Biden’s victory means we might actually have a real race rather than a Sanders coronation.
Tom Steyer placed third with 11.3% and withdrew from the race. More on his spectacular flameout in the Clown Car Update tomorrow.
Pete Buttigieg placed fourth with 8.2%, Elizabeth Warren fifth with 7.1%, Amy Klobuchar sixth with 3.1% and Tulsi Gabbard coming up the rear with 1.4%. Michael Bloomberg wasn’t on the ballot in South Carolina, but he will be on the ballot in most (all?) Super Tuesday states.
People may not realize is that this isn’t just Joe Biden’s first primary victory of 2020, it’s his first presidential primary victory anywhere, ever.
Biden withdrew from the 1988 presidential race after admitting that he plagiarized a speech from UK Labour leader Neil Kinnock, which is rather like a UK politician plagiarizing Walter Mondale. That incident brought other cases of Biden plagiarism to light.
In 2008, Biden withdrew after finishing fifth in Iowa. (After eight years as Obama’s Vice President, he would improve his Iowa caucuses finish all the way to fourth this year.)
Fortunately for Biden, Sanders wasn’t able to appeal to black Democratic voters nearly as well as white voters. In fact, black voters favored Biden four to one over Sanders in South Carolina. Indeed, according to the Washington Post, Biden won the following groups in South Carolina by six percentage points or more:
Wow, how does Bernie lose the socialized medicine and “very liberal” vote? By contrast, the only two groups he won were 17-29 year olds and those who never go to church.
Now the same media figure who penned “Biden is doomed” pieces are now penning “Biden comeback juggernaut” pieces. But there’s a lot of the race still to run. Biden has the chance to rack up a lot of southern state delegates on Super Tuesday, but Sanders likely cleans up in California, Maine, his native Vermont, Utah, and possibly Colorado and Oklahoma (both of which he won in 2016), while Warren still has a chance to get a “favorite daughter” victory in Massachusetts, and even otherwise-hopeless Klobuchar might get a few delegates in her native Minnesota. Bloomberg’s saturation money bombing campaign is likely to produce some delegates, but where? Buttigieg might pick up a few California delegates, but otherwise I don’t see where he can even sniff a victory on Super Tuesday; if Biden’s viable, then he isn’t.
A brokered convention is still very much in play.
Stay tuned…
Tags: 2020 Presidential Race, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elections, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Neil Kinnock, Pete Buttigieg, South Carolina, Tom Steyer, Tulsi Gabbard