Hello all. I hope everyone is healthy and staying in doors. Today we will be reviewing everything that has happened since the Nevada Caucus, which is a lot. We are now down to two candidates, Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice-President Joe Biden. While the electoral process is seemingly on pause till further notice, despite a few states still insisting on holding primary votes in the coming weeks, there is a lot to take in. Most surprisingly, is the sudden comeback that former Vice-President Joe Biden has had. He has won nearly every primary since Nevada, by incredibly large margins. He has been endorsed by nearly every Democratic candidate that has dropped out of the race thus far. Joe Biden did incredibly well at time when many thought his campaign to be dead. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders failed to get the young voter turnout he promised and has very little chance of becoming the Democratic candidate.

Image of Sanders and Biden debate where no crowd was present

Source: CNBC

So what happened? It all started with Joe Biden victory in South Carolina. NBCNews reported that “Biden had 48.6 percent and Sanders had 19.8 percent – a winning margin of about 150,000 votes.” Joe Biden was expected to win South Carolina. He polls well with black voters, and the South has generally more conservative Democrats. I personally think that he won by a much larger margin than I was expecting. At this point, the news was reporting mostly on candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders. Whenever Joe Biden was mentioned, it was to point out the failings of his campaigns. Despite the negative press, voters still turned out and voted for him. In hindsight, this foreshadowed Joe Biden’s great successes to come on Super Tuesday. At the same time, we saw the loss of candidates like Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar, both of who were quick to support Joe Biden. Their support of Joe Biden was not unexpected, given that they were both moderate candidates.

Image of Joe Biden after his win in South Carolina

Source: NPR

The night of Super Tuesday turned out differently than most people expected. Joe Biden won nine state primaries, mostly southern states, which was unsurprising. However, he also won states like Massachusetts and Minnesota, which many expected to go Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. Bernie also lost states that he won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton (which demonstrates a lot about the extent of sexism in this country but that’s another topic for another time). Joe Biden’s success can be credited to many things. The New York Times pointed out that Biden did well among “black voters, older voters, and suburbanites.” I think that it shows that many people are not ready for another radical change to come about in the American system. Coming as a shock to many, former Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang endorsed Joe Biden following his success on Super Tuesday. This was despite the fact that Andrew Yang is a more progressive Democrat whose policies closely aligned with those of Bernie Sanders.

Image of the county breakdowns on Super Tuesday

Source: The New York Times

So where do we stand now? Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race after performing very poorly in all the polls, something that surprised many. Again, I would argue that this is likely due to the prominent sexism female candidates continue to face in the United States. However, Elizabeth Warren has yet to endorse a candidate. At this point, I believe it is incredibly unlikely that she endorses Bernie Sanders. They were on bad terms following him denying the fact that he said he did not believe a female could be president. Moreover, her campaign was upset that Bernie Sanders did so little to limit the amount of cyber-harassment she received from Sander’s more radical supporters. At the same time, Joe Biden has promised to chose a female to be vice-president. I believe it would be smart of him to chose Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, a move that would help to bring together the progressives and moderates of the Democratic Party.

Source: The Boston Globe

At this point in time, Former Vice-President Joe Biden went on to win multiple more states, bringing his delegate total to 1,217 and Senator Bernie Sander’s has 914 delegates. 1,990 delegates are needed to have the majority and be the Democratic Presidential candidate. It is nearly impossible for Bernie Sanders to become the Democratic candidate, with FiveThirtyEight projecting that the chance the Joe Biden wins is 99%. So what happened to the Sanders campaign? I think a number of things went wrong, but mainly I believe that the majority of Americans do not want another radical change. President Donald Trump has radically altered American society, and at this point many Americans do not want something different, even though it may be better, they want things to return to normal, like when Obama was in office. Biden offers the platform most likely to bring back the way of the past in many peoples’ mind. What do you think? Where could Sanders have altered his campaign? Would Sanders have won if he were not running after Trump? I am not sure, but I would love to know what your opinions are.