Biden gains momentum on Super Tuesday, Bloomberg bows out

Joe Biden had a big night on Super Tuesday. After struggling to gain traction early in the race, his campaign was revived with a big win in South Carolina last Saturday. That momentum continued into Tuesday’s contest.

As the first results came in, the strength of his broad base of support among Democrats in the south was cemented. But, as was demonstrated throughout the night, Biden’s base of support wasn’t confined to just a certain geographical area. He managed wins in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and notably, Texas, which was high on Sanders’ list of potential wins.

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, and Elizabeth Warren, the Senator from Massachusetts, failed to gain traction in the race. On Wednesday morning, the day after the results were announced, Bloomberg dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden.

Warren, for her part, hasn’t made any announcements on the status of her candidacy. On Wednesday her campaign released a statement saying that they are currently “assessing their path forward.”

After the dust had settled, it looked clear that Joe Biden would take the lead in the total delegate count. At the time of writing, Biden has 433 confirmed delegates to Sanders’ 388.

To win the Democratic nomination, 1,991 delegates are needed.

Sanders takes California, but faces setback

For Bernie Sanders, the Senator from Vermont, there was some success on Tuesday, overshadowed as it was by Biden’s stronger than expected performance.

Sanders won California, the state with the most delegates. He also won Utah, Colorado and his home state of Vermont.

That said, Sanders’ status as frontrunner was all but taken away. Speaking to the press on Wednesday, Sanders acknowledged that his campaign “hadn’t done as well in bringing young people into the process” as they’d wanted but vowed that would change if he won the nomination.

He also characterized himself as being “neck and neck” with Joe Biden and emphasized his message of structural change. “What this campaign, I think, is increasingly about is, ‘Which side are you on?” Sanders said.

A changed race

After the results of Tuesday’s contests became apparent, the progressive wing of the party showed signs of tumult. As Warren, who paints herself as one of the more left-leaning candidates, declined to leave the race, at least for now, some publicly speculated whether it was time for her to end her bid.

Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democrat in the House of Representatives, suggested that the left wing of the party would benefit from coalescence around its preferred candidate, Sanders.

“Imagine if the progressives consolidated last night like the moderates consolidated, who would have won?” she tweeted on Wednesday.