After scathing setbacks, the former Democratic Vice-President has proven himself as a favorite against Bernie Sanders.
Joe Biden Gets Slapped
This Tuesday, February 10, at the end of the afternoon, New Hampshire votes, and Joe Biden flies off. At the end of the morning, he decided to cancel the planned electoral evening in the city of Nashua, expecting a new Win. A few days earlier, he admitted to having “been slapped” in Iowa, where he came fourth. During the debate organized in the Granite State on February 7, he publicly expected a new defeat but, when the first estimates appear, it is even crueler than feared.
8% of the vote
With only 8% of the vote, he is condemned to an unlikely fifth place for a former vice-president. No candidate has ever survived such cruel setbacks in the first two states to rule in a presidential Democratic nomination contest. Joe Biden flies to South Carolina, which is scheduled to vote on February 29. “It’s not over, it’s just started,” he swears to Columbia.
“Soul” of America
For weeks, alarming signals have been accumulating for the one who entered the campaign in April 2019 with the rank of favorite. He fights, he says, for the “soul” of America, threatened by Donald Trump. Still, he does not display the energy of his rivals Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who promise them a “political revolution” or “major structural changes.” By reducing the election of the billionaire to a combination of circumstances, Joe Biden scarcely sketches any other prospect than a backward step, which is not very mobilizing. Its rooms are sparse, and its finances in danger.
Warning shot
The day before New Hampshire’s vote, in the basement of a church in the small town of Gilford, the former vice-president dwells more on the past, on his balance sheet, on his painful personal trials – the death of his first wife and his first daughter in a road accident, that of his son Beau, who died of cancer – that he would not project his audience into the future. A sexagenarian who came to listen to him out of curiosity confides: “I don’t want to be mean to Joe Biden, but we have the impression that he has run out of juice. ” Some of his supporters openly reluctant.
Michael Bloomberg
Everything seems to come together against the former vice-president. The push from the left, embodied by the independent senator from Vermont and his colleague from Massachusetts, prompted in November 2019 the billionaire Michael Bloomberg to enter the race. But the latter crumbles, even more, the camp of candidates who defend more moderate proposals and which already counts, in addition to Joe Biden, the senator of Minnesota Amy Klobuchar, the former mayor of a small town of Indiana Pete Buttigieg, feeling of the start of the nomination contest, or the billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer.
Also Read: Mike Bloomberg’s first Debate
After New Hampshire
Michael Bloomberg spends without counting, hires at soaring prices, floods the airwaves with advertisements. At the same time, Bernie Sanders wins necessarily on the left, leaving Elizabeth Warren behind. He becomes the primary beneficiary of the congestion of this democratic race. Despite results in less significant votes than in his first candidacy, in 2016, when he embodied the “everything except Hillary Clinton,” then favorite, the independent senator takes off in a number of delegates. After New Hampshire, Joe Biden is now his back to the wall.
Can Joe Biden succeed?
Can it succeed? The day before the Iowa caucus, February 2, one of his rare supporters, former Secretary of State John Kerry, had already had to firmly deny the rumor of his campaign entry, fueled by a telephone conversation surprise in the lobby of a Des Moines hotel. After the first warning shot, the 77-year-old former vice-president reorganized his campaign team, hiring the services of a former Barack Obama communications director, Anita Dunn.
Nevada
This reshuffle does not produce the expected result. Still, Joe Biden breaks his fall by managing to obtain the second place in Nevada, on February 22, far behind the new favorite, Bernie Sanders. He was able to take advantage in this State of the know-how of an expert, Jen O’Malley Dillon, a former member of the team in charge of the re-election of Barack Obama, in 2012, who worked until his retirement from the race to the nomination for former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke.
Time is running out. Joe Biden has only one week before him and limited means. He bet everything on the support he expects from the African American community, which is the majority among the Democrats in South Carolina. Still, the billionaire Tom Steyer intends to contest this vote. His latest card is called Jim Clyburn, 79 years old.
South Carolina
On February 23, the former vice-president spoke with number three of the House of Representatives, elected for almost thirty years in South Carolina. The latter paints an uncompromising picture of its weaknesses, which has the value of electroshock. The day after a debate in which Mr. Biden was a little less borrowed than the earlier ones, he publicly supported him.
On February 29, the Clyburn card worked wonders in the Palmetto State. Back from the political dead, Joe Biden triumphs. “We are alive! He roared. He lacked a story, and here he presents himself as the spokesperson for the left behind and the vanquished capable of recovering and going back to battle. Bernie Sanders is thirty points behind. Crushed, Tom Steyer at once gives up.
Start at the end of February
Joe Biden then appealed to the identity of the party, presenting himself as “a democrat of always, a proud Democrat, an Obama-Biden democrat.” The reference to the independent senator from Vermont is apparent. The latter continues to stigmatize a half-real, half-fantasized “establishment,” which would only think of harming it. It is also targeting billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican, who concentrated his immense forces on the fourteen states of Super Tuesday scheduled three days later.
Selma, Alabama
The day after the start, March 1, many of the candidates are found in Selma, Alabama, to commemorate the march for civil rights in 1965. Atomized violently repressed in South Carolina, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are gauges. In the afternoon, the youngest in the race stopped his campaign to return to Indiana and announce his withdrawal. The next day, Amy Klobuchar did the same and called to vote for the former vice-president. In the afternoon of Monday, Pete Buttigieg meets Joe Biden in Texas to give him his support. Beto O’Rourke, a former elected official of El Paso, also.
Joe Biden appears to be unstoppable
In a few hours, the scattered pieces of a puzzle have just rearranged. On Super Tuesday, the speculative bubble that carried Michael Bloomberg burst pitifully. He will give up the next day. Everywhere, a useful vote pushes Joe Biden to the head of the votes. All those who think, rightly or wrongly, that the presidential election will be played in the center consider him as the best candidate against Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders’ momentum is stopped dead. A virtuous circle is set up for the benefit of Joe Biden, who feeds on rallies and new victories on March 10. The former vice-president lost two weeks earlier, now appears to be unstoppable.