Joe Biden's stunning surge
His Super Tuesday victories resurrected his candidacy — and shredded a series of common political assumptions in the process
By the time all the Super Tuesday votes are counted across 14 states, former vice president Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will likely be neck-and-neck in the delegate count, or one might have slightly bested the other. But the biggest story of the night by far will have been Biden's stunning surge.
One month ago, Biden fell off a polling cliff, plummeting from the high 20s in national polls to the mid-teens. He finished fourth in Iowa and came in a distant fifth in New Hampshire. No modern candidate with results like that has gone on to win a presidential nomination. He seemed dead in the water. And after Sanders ran away with the Nevada caucuses, it seemed for a few days like the Democratic Party was preparing to nominate a democratic socialist with the self-financed campaign of billionaire Michael Bloomberg the only thing that could stop him.
But all that has changed in the past week. From South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn's endorsement of Biden last Wednesday to Biden's resounding 48.4 percent victory in the state's primary on Saturday to former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropping out of the race and endorsing Biden over the intervening days to a series of strongly favorable polls on Monday and Tuesday, all signs pointed toward a dramatic turn of events. And on Tuesday night that sense was verified in spades.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Biden didn't just win in the South — in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia — where he was widely expected to do very well with African American voters, as he had in South Carolina. He also prevailed in Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, showing he could do well in states with whiter electorates in very different regions of the country. As of midnight, he was also fighting Sanders to a virtual tie in Maine and had begun to pull into the lead in Texas.
Measured in delegates, Sanders was likely to have a good night as well — with wins in Colorado, Utah, and the biggest delegate prize of them all, California. On the other hand, after such an unexpectedly robust showing on Super Tuesday, Biden would be a strong favorite in several upcoming contests in large states over the next two months, including Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New York. Biden accomplished what appeared to be impossible just over a week ago: he brought himself back from the dead.
But that's not all. Biden's unexpected resurrection also shredded a series of assumptions that have long prevailed among pundits and other political prognosticators.
Biden showed that Iowa and New Hampshire don't need to matter at all. We've seen candidates skip Iowa, fail to win New Hampshire, and then go on to secure their party's nomination. But competing in both, finishing fourth and fifth, and then ending up the frontrunner? That's unheard of — and it calls into question not just whether those two small and unrepresentative states should come first on the calendar, but whether the way they vote deserves outsized attention at all.
Biden also showed that money doesn't matter as much as many of us tend to assume it does. The Biden campaign was outspent 7-to-1 by the Sanders camp and an astonishing 100-to-1 by the Bloomberg juggernaut in the states that competed on Super Tuesday — and yet Biden beat Sanders in lots of places and bested Bloomberg almost everywhere.
The same could even be said for campaigning itself. Biden barely campaigned at all in several of the states he won on Tuesday — and he had just one field office in the state of Virginia, which he won with 53.3 percent of the vote! (Sanders came in second there with 23.1 percent.)
But perhaps most surprising of all after the Trump insurgency of 2016 and the apparent Democratic chaos of the past couple of months, Biden's remarkable reversal of fortune this past week shows that the party decides presidential nominations after all — or at least it can still do so when the stakes are sufficiently high and leading members of the party resolve to intervene. Tuesday's results simply couldn't have happened had the institutional party not engaged in an astoundingly rapid act of consolidation — against Sanders and in favor of Biden.
Whatever the final tally turns out to be, we will be learning the lessons of Joe Biden's spectacular comeback on Super Tuesday 2020 for a long time to come.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.
-
Who are the markets backing in the US election?
Talking Point Speculators are piling in on the Trump trade. A Harris victory would come as a surprise
By The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: November 3, 2024
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku hard: November 3, 2024
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
US election: who the billionaires are backing
The Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Harris keeps her crime policies close to the vest
The Explainer How a post-pandemic crime wave changed the Democratic nominee's priorities
By David Faris Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US says Israel must up Gaza aid or risk arms halt
Speed Read The Biden administration has provided a 30-day ultimatum to the country
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Bob Woodward's War: the explosive Trump revelations
In the spotlight Nobody can beat Watergate veteran at 'getting the story of the White House from the inside'
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Netanyahu talk ahead of Israeli hit on Iran
Speed Read The pair spoke for the first time since August
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published