Biden’s comeback on Super Tuesday means a fight to the death with Trump

It is quite something for one of the most crucial days in the American presidential news cycle to be overshadowed by a health story, but this year Super Tuesday passed us by without so much as raising an eyebrow. The Fed’s decision to cut interest rates to calm the turmoil in the markets was of greater significance to a world that has temporarily lost its bearings. In the face of global panic, the question of which two septuagenarians would fight it out for the White House in November struck many non-Americans as beside the point.

Yet the results of Democratic primaries in 14 states were unexpected. So much so, in fact, that they have turned the contest to find a challenger for Donald Trump into a two-horse race. Bernie Sanders has stalled, Elizabeth Warren has withered, Mike Bloomberg has bombed — but Joe Biden has made the greatest comeback of his career. 

Though counting still continues in the largest states, California and Texas, the overall picture is clear. Sanders won four states, including his own (Vermont), but Biden won ten. Neither of the other two serious candidates won any. Sanders’ tally included liberal California, while Biden took conservative Texas; Bloomberg came a poor third in both. What makes Biden’s triumph extraordinary is that the former Vice-President only won his first primary in three presidential campaigns last Saturday. With hindsight, South Carolina already signaled a shift in public support towards the Biden bandwagon. The interesting question is: why?

There were, of course, local factors in play. The socialist Sanders has never been popular in the southern states that dominate on Super Tuesday. Amy Klobuchar quit on Monday and backed Biden, which must have helped him in her home state of Minnesota. But Massachusetts was natural territory for both Warren and Sanders, yet Biden beat them both. What matters are the numbers of delegates, which means that Biden has done well even in states that he did not win, because he crossed the 15 per cent threshold to gain delegates in every single state. Out of some 1,300 delegates at stake, Biden appears to have won a plurality, despite California, with the largest number, going to Sanders. 

So what does it all mean? The momentum is with Biden — so much so that Sanders may now struggle to stop his rival sweeping the board. Warren and Bloomberg will now seriously consider dropping out. The former might support Sanders, the latter — with his billions — could back Biden. The main question for Democrat voters, as opposed to activists, is: who has the best chance of stopping a second term for Trump? To this, there can be only one answer: the moderate Biden, who is backed by the Black caucus and could appeal to the swing states that the Democrats need to regain. The radical Sanders has too many negatives to beat a President who still enjoys solid support in the south where Biden did well this week.

Despite his new status as the comeback kid, the old questions about Biden’s competence have not gone away. The gaffe-prone senator has not improved with age. His achievements are few in a career more remarkable for its length than anything else. Warren has been a Harvard professor, Bloomberg has built a media empire and run New York, Sanders has become a leading Democratic candidate despite not being a Democrat. Even Trump defied the odds to seize the presidency and has survived an attempt to impeach him. But what has Biden actually done? Apart from his folksy familiarity, the list of his virtues is short. In a year that has already seen the spectre of pandemic and the threat of economic crisis, a choice between Trump and Biden to lead the free world is hardly inspiring. 

In Gimson’s Presidents: Brief Lives from Washington to Trump (Square Peg, £10.99), Andrew Gimson’s brilliant new survey of the occupants of the Oval Office concludes that the mediocrity of US politics is nothing new. He quotes the classic authorities on America: Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s — “the ablest men are rarely placed at the head of affairs” — and James Bryce in the 1880s — “when the choice is between a brilliant man and a safe man, the safe man is preferred”. (The latter comment certainly applies to Biden.)

Gimson himself concludes that “American democracy has always been both sacred and profane. It encompasses gentlemen and hucksters. It encompasses Washington and Trump.” One might add that Trump, for all his profanities, has an unerring political instinct that has often been vindicated against the pundits who think themselves his superior. That is also the case with Biden, whom Trump identified as his most dangerous opponent from the start. When most had written off Biden, Trump did not. His attempt to dig for dirt in Ukraine on the son of the man he identified as his chief rival, embroiled the President in a trial before the Senate for “high crimes and misdemeanours”. 

Trump’s acquittal undoubtedly energised him, but now he must defeat the opponent he failed to smear. The rest of the world may sneer or groan at the prospect of Trump versus Biden, but theirs will be a fight to the death.