Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden received a boost before the Super nomination contests on Tuesday when Senators Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg gave him their approval on Monday after ending their own White House offers.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar each flew to Dallas on Monday to support Biden at a rally on the eve of Super Tuesday. At stake in Texas are 228 delegates – the third largest number of delegates available in the Democratic nomination contest. On Tuesday, 14 states will determine the third of the pledged delegates – 1,344 of the 1,991 needed to win the nomination to challenge President Donald Trump in November.
Sanders dominated the voting averages in the biggest prize in California: 415 delegates are up for grabs. The Vermont senator, who had the most delegates before Tuesday, tweeted on monday that he does not believe “we will defeat Donald Trump with a candidate like Joe Biden who supported the war in Iraq”.
But many moderate Democrats and establishment party figures were concerned that if Sanders, a Democratic socialist, won the nomination, he would not be able to attract the broad coalition the party needs to beat Trump. Biden criticized Sanders’ plans such as “Medicare for All” and the deletion of student debt as too costly.
Another joker is that former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg will begin appearing on ballots Tuesday after spend $ 539 million until Thursday to cover the country with advertising.
To fight Sanders’ popular campaign and Bloomberg publicity, Biden spent Monday collecting prominent mentions, including former Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Reid called Biden “the best capable” of defeating Trump.
Austin mayor Steve Adler, who had previously endorsed Buttigieg, launched his support behind Biden on Monday, saying “it is time for the party to consolidate.”
The twin departures of Klobuchar and Buttigieg in less than 24 hours offered Biden the opportunity to unite the moderate voters behind his candidacy.
Klobuchar presented herself as a moderate with the appeal of the Midwest and the political “grain”. She enjoyed a boomlet after New Hampshire primary, where a surprise third place gave him a necessary boost for fundraising and new political momentum. Klobuchar said New Hampshire’s results have shown it can beat expectations and build a broad coalition, as it did in its Senate races.
“I defied expectations and I won. And I did it over and over again in the reddest and bluest red light districts of the blue districts,” she told New Hampshire supporters .
But his “Klomentum” seemed to evaporate as quickly as it emerged. She only collected 3% of the votes in Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, a result that practically closed her way to the nomination.
Buttigieg, a former Navy intelligence officer who served in Afghanistan, was one of the few military veterans in the race. He has also offered university degrees as a Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Harvard University and the University of Oxford who speak several languages. He inspired unity and inclusiveness as an openly gay candidate.
But after winning the Iowa caucuses, he struggled to gain ground with young voters and placed a disappointing fourth Saturday in South Carolina. In his departure speech Sunday at South Bend, Buttigieg said he “would do everything in my power to have a new Democratic president in January”.
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Klobuchar invested most of her time and money in Iowa, where she finished fifth, and in New Hampshire, where she obtained almost 20% of the vote.
But just days after New Hampshire’s primary, Klobuchar tripped in an interview with Telemundo when asked if she could appoint the President of Mexico. “No,” she replied in a time that came back to haunt her during the democratic debate on February 18.
And New Hampshire’s rebound was not enough to help him step up his campaign as the race moved to Nevada and South Carolina. She finished sixth in Nevada caucuses.
Klobuchar’s rivals, including Biden and Sanders, were much better organized in these two states. And they received wider support among Latin and African American voters, key constituencies over which she could not win.
Klobuchar, 59, has been the US senator from Minnesota since 2007 and the first female senator in the state. She launched her campaign in the middle of a snowstorm on the bank of the Mississippi River.
“I’m not coming from the money,” said Klobuchar as snow gathered on the crowd. “But what I have is this: I have grain. I have family. I have friends. I have neighbors. I have everyone ready to go out in the middle of winter, everyone who took the time to watch us from here today, all of you who are ready to get up and say that people matter. “
Klobuchar has presented himself as the best alternative to the race liberals, Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, boasting of his Midwestern roots and his ability to work across the aisle to get things done in the Senate.
“I am someone who can win and beat Donald Trump,” she said in the first primary debate last year. “I have won every place, every race and every time. I have won in the reddest neighborhoods, the ones that Donald Trump won with more than 20 points. I can win in states like Wisconsin and Iowa and Michigan. “
On certain progressive policies, such as “Medicare for All” and access to free university, Klobuchar differed from his more progressive counterparts.
On the way to the countryside, Klobuchar sometimes had to deal with a report that called her one of the “worst bosses” of Congress, a designation politico gave it to him in 2018.
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the New york times in 2019 reported several cases of his “unethical” conduct as an employer in February. Among the claims: Klobuchar was known to “throw things of frustration, including binders and phones, at assistants.” In a notorious anecdote, Klobuchar would have eaten his salad with a comb when an assistant did not bring him a fork.
“Yes, I can be tough, and yes, I can push people,” Klobuchar told reporters after the first allegations were aired. “I have high expectations for me. I have great expectations for the people who work for me. But I have great expectations for this country. “
Contributor: Rebecca Morin
