Andrew Yang says Bernie Sanders was his 'inspiration,' but 'the math' has him endorsing Joe Biden

Another onetime Democratic presidential candidate is showing support for former Vice President Joe Biden.

Over the last week, several ex-candidates have endorsed Biden, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and on Tuesday, they were joined by entrepreneur Andrew Yang. Now a CNN political commentator, Yang announced on Tuesday night he is backing Biden.

"I believe that Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee, and I've always said I'm going to support whoever the nominee is," he said. "So I hereby am endorsing Joe Biden to be not just the nominee for the Democratic Party, but the next president of the United States."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

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.

Sign up

Yang shared his decision shortly after several networks projected Biden won the Michigan primary. He said that while he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during the 2016 race and considered him an "inspiration ... the math says Joe is our prohibitive nominee. We need to bring the party together. We need to start working on defeating Donald Trump in the fall." Biden, he added, is "the right man for the job."

To win over Yang and Sanders supporters, Biden needs to "show we know this economy's not working for many, many Americans, millions of Americans who feel left behind," Yang said. He praised Biden for being a "really, really patriotic public servant" and a "decent man who wants to do right by the American people. To me, a lot of it's about getting real solutions in place that more and more Americans feel will actually improve their day-to-day lives." Catherine Garcia