Joe Biden pulled off what national news analysts are calling “the comeback of all time” or words of that sort after the former vice president swept through the South – Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina and Arkansas – as well as took Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oklahoma and is projected to take Maine when the counting’s done in the Super Tuesday primaries, according to reports from the Associate Press, ABC News, CNN and other national news agencies.
Coming after his huge victory in South Carolina last weekend, Biden has moved slightly ahead of his No. 1 rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders.
Sanders underperformed – his goal was to sock the nomination away by sweeping the contests Tuesday – and he is projected to take California (the most delegate-rich state), while he did win in his home state of Vermont, as well as in Utah and Colorado.
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped out of the race Wednesday and threw his support — and his billions — behind Biden’s effort to beat Donald Trump in November. Trump, of course, was the Republican primaries choice on Tuesday.
Here is our Lumination Network story leading into Tuesday’s contests:
March 3 is Super Tuesday. On Super Tuesday, 15 states (including Tennessee) will hold their primaries, going a long way in deciding who will reach 1,991 delegates and be the party’s nominee for president.
While he does have a challenger in former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, it is all but guaranteed President Trump will be the party’s nominee.
With Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer having dropped out over the weekend, only six of the sixteen candidates on Tennessee’s ballot have not suspended their campaigns: Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
Five of those candidates have garnered significant attention and votes in the first four primaries and caucuses. Sanders has claimed 48 delegates, Biden 34, Warren 8, and Klobuchar 7. Michael Bloomberg has received no delegates but has garnered enough attention since announcing his candidacy to remain in the mix.
Though they are all in the same party, many of the candidates have different stances on the multitude of issues facing the country this election cycle.
Nearly all of the candidates have a different idea of what to do with student debt. Sanders wants to abolish all of it, paying for the plan by taxing Wall Street transactions. Warren would clear up to $50,000 of debt for those earning less than $100,000. Klobuchar, Bloomberg, and Biden would expand current debt relief programs such as the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
On health care, Warren and Sanders promise a single-payer “Medicare For All” system soon after getting into office. The other three, while they would expand Medicare, say a single-payer system would be too expensive and favor an approach that gives people the option of choosing a public plan or one from a private insurer.
Four of the candidates agree that, under the DACA program, there should be an easier path to immigration for children brought into the U.S. illegally (called Dreamers).
There is more dissension around what to do with 8 USC Section 1325 – a law that makes coming across the border illegally a criminal offense. Sanders and Warren support the removal and subsequent decriminalization of illegal border crossing. Biden and Klobuchar would both leave the law in place but end child separation at the border.
Bloomberg has not come out in support of either stance.
There are several places throughout Davidson County to vote tomorrow. The closest to Lipscomb is at the Church of Christ in Green Hills located at 3805 Granny White Pike.
Photo Courtesy of Allie Smith.