Following his surprising sweep during Super Tuesday, former Vice President Joe Biden has added more notches to his belt, netting wins in four of the six contested states on Mar. 10: Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri and the delegate-rich state of Michigan (which holds a total of 125 delegates, the sole triple-digit delegate state of the night’s primary).
As of this writing, with 94% of the results having been reported, Biden holds a slim 2.0 lead against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) in Washington state.
Out of the six states, Sanders has as of this writing won the state of North Dakota, earning him 14 additional delegates.
Both the Sanders campaign and his supporters were looking forward to a repeat of the 2016 primary in which the senator shocked pollsters by winning the coveted state of Michigan, beating the eventual 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton 49.8% to 48.3%.
However, history wouldn’t repeat itself four years later as Biden cruised to victory, winning by 52.9% and securing nearly one million votes.
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Losing Michigan signals danger for the fate of Sanders’ campaign. Despite airing anti-Biden ads all across the state, holding several rallies and earning an endorsement from civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, the Democratic Socialist came up short.
In his victory speech later that night in Philadelphia, Biden congratulated Sanders on a hard-fought battle.
“I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy and passion,” Biden said. “We share a common goal. Together we’ll defeat Donald Trump. We’ll defeat him together. We’ll bring this nation together.”
The following day, Sanders held a press conference in Burlington, Vermont in which he informed the public that he had no plans of dropping out and signaled that the Mar. 15 debate in Washington, D.C. will be the moment that will allow voters to truly see what each candidate stands for policy-wise and that his campaign is the one that will defeat President Donald Trump this November.
“The American people will have the opportunity to see which candidate is best positioned to accomplish that goal,” Sanders noted.
Currently, Biden leads the delegate count by 890 to 736.
Quinton Bradley
Contributing Writer