Former Vice President Joe Biden is back on top after a big win in South Carolina on Saturday, cashing new checks from Democratic donors and hoping to harness the momentum going into Super Tuesday.
Biden is now the popular vote leader in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and, thanks to a decisive South Carolina victory that appears to have left Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) below the 15% threshold necessary to take any delegates from the contest, is trailing the Vermont socialist by just 6 delegates overall, according to NBC News.
The former Veep was expected to win the South Carolina primary but, as recently as last week, had been just four points ahead of the second place finisher, Sanders, in polls. Sanders, benefitting from his own decisive wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, was on an upswing, and had jumped up significantly. But faced with the possibility of Sanders becoming the prospective nominee, mainstream and establishment Democrats turned on Sanders with a wave of opposition research, apparently stalling his rise.
Biden was the ultimate beneficiary, finishing more than a dozen points ahead of his best poll.
He told the Sunday morning talks shows that he also raised a significant amount of money in just under 24 hours.
“We now won more actual votes overall since this began since this whole process began than Bernie has won, so look we’re feeling good,” Biden told NBC’s Chuck Todd Sunday morning, adding that his campaign had taken in $5 million as a result of the win.
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That brings his grand total to $18 million in February, far less than Sanders, but better than any month on record for Biden so far.
The former Vice President told “Meet the Press” that he plans to “take nothing for granted,” and to “stay on message” as the contest heads into Super Tuesday, where more than 400 delegates are up for grabs in a dozen states.
Tuesday March 3rd will present a brand new race for both Biden and Sanders, and the first time either will face former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has spent $500 million of his own money to reach third place nationally. Bloomberg will appear on the California ballot on Tuesday in an effort to prove that he has grassroots support, even if he’s well behind in earning delegates.
Bloomberg, of course, hopes that if no single candidate goes into the Democratic National Convention with a majority of the available delegates, triggering a second vote, that he can harness the power of superdelegates — mostly former Democratic party officials, all-star Democrat legislators, and Democratic mega-donors — to take the nomination.
As of last week, Sanders was slated to pick up major wins, per polling site FiveThirtyEight, but Biden’s Saturday victory will likely put some of those wins into closer territory. Biden and Sanders could go neck-and-neck in major Super Tuesday states like North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, and Bloomberg could kneecap both Sanders and Biden in California, limiting how many delegates each can take out of Tuesday’s largest primary.
Saturday night, Sanders was clear he doesn’t plan to lose many more contests, however.
“That will not be the only defeat. A lot of states in this country. Nobody wins them all,” he said to a rally in Virginia. “Now we enter Super Tuesday.”
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