Realpolitik indeed! With Senator Warren also retired from the Democratic presidential primary race, it is now a two men contest: Joe Biden v. Bernie Sanders.
Joe Biden is, once again, the front runner of the Democratic primaries, leading both the popular vote cast so far and, most importantly, the “pledged delegates,” which count towards the nomination that will take place at the Democratic National Committee Convention in July. Moreover, he has consolidated the support of every former major primary candidate except Warren.
At the moment, everyone’s keeping an eye on Michigan because, of all the states holding primaries on March 10, Michigan is a battleground. In addition to the sizeable prize (125 pledged delegates), this state symbolizes something more. A win in Michigan comes with a key component of the Democratic coalition: labor unions and unionized workers. And, depending on the margins (statewide and in congressional districts), the delegate count could become unbearable for Sanders, should Biden win the state. More so, since the primary elections that follow Michigan include southern states that lean in Biden’s favor, including Florida and Georgia, ahead of the Acela primaries. Like in Nevada, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday, the African American vote will be decisive for Biden, as well as the Latino vote in Florida and Arizona.
Now, let’s talk about the Latino electorate.
Senator Sanders performed well with Latinos in Nevada (53%), California (49%), and Texas (41%), banking on a generational divide in preferences. However, the Latino vote is not a monolith. Florida will be exemplary of the diversity among Latinos, surpassing the essential age factor in past contests and accounting for national origins. There, you have the diasporas from Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, among other Latino voters in southeast Florida, and the Puerto Rican vote in the I-4 corridor of Central Florida.
Sanders will not do well with such diverse groups of Latinos in Florida. His views regarding Latin American politics (exemplified with his out of touch comments about Fidel Castro) cause backlash—just as much as his self proclaimed “democratic socialist” label. This is not so because this bloc of Latino voters are not lined-up with a progressive agenda. Instead, many of them associate the word “socialism” or far-left” with the painful wounds of their exile from regimes that abused the concept of socialism with which the respective “caudillos” of each of these countries self-identified. Therefore, we predict Sanders’ support from Latinos in Florida will be very low. And, we also see numbers in Arizona closer to the results in Texas, rather than to those in Nevada. Besides, Biden has received numerous endorsements from influential Latino leaders across the country, such as Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, Long Beach Mayor Robert García, Congressman Tony Cárdenas, and inspiring Latinas like Congresswomen Veronica Escobar and Silvia Garcia from Texas.
One last interesting factor to consider is Sanders’ tone and narrative after Super Tuesday: the notion of a Democratic establishment conspiracy against his popular movement. Nothing further from the facts, and nothing closer to Trump’s rhetoric when trying to meddle in the Democratic primaries.
Biden took the lead in the popular vote after the vote in South Carolina. After adding the votes cast on Super Tuesday, he now has another million votes of advantage over Sanders. Biden is now factually the candidate with the plurality of the vote by significant margins, and with a solid pathway to building a majority of both the popular vote and pledged delegates. Nonetheless, the Sanders narrative carries a terrible venom, which should not be allowed a pass. Both candidates must focus on contrasting their ideas and each one’s strengths and strategy to defeat Trump, retain control of the House of Representatives, and potentially make gains in the Senate.
As of today, Biden shows, in addition to the popular vote and pledged delegates advantage, a significant lead of down-ballot candidates and elected officials, including DNC members, most with the status of “automatic unpledged delegates” (also known as superdelegates). There are 771 superdelegates at the Party Convention. They will cast their vote only in the event of a contested convention (one in which no candidate reaches the majority of 1991 pledge delegate votes as elected in the primaries and caucuses). These rules were written in a process that conceded to reform demands advocated by Senator Sanders, regarding the subject of the “perceived influence” of superdelegates in the nomination process (indeed they did not matter in 2016 and historically).
This is, by no means—like Senator Sanders and his surrogates maintain—a fight of the establishment against change. It is, more than anything, a function of many people’s perception that Biden made his case of electability. He showed resilience in the face of the unprecedented and fabricated attacks the White House made against him early in the process, to the extent that Trump risked becoming an impeached President.