Biden reopens path to ‘US nomination’

Bloomberg

Democrats have waited three years for a winner to call their own and take on President Donald Trump. On Super Tuesday, Joe Biden laid his claim to becoming their champion.
He won across the Deep South, showing his appeal with black voters at the heart of the party, and claimed victory in Minnesota, a predominantly white Rust Belt state in Trump’s cross-hairs this November.
He won the rich, highly educated suburbanites in Virginia and North Carolina who waffled for months over which candidate to support. He also scored an upset in Massachusetts, the home state of one rival and in the backyard of another.
Biden laid claim to another upset, this time in Texas — the second-biggest delegate trove — and remained ahead in Maine, states that seemed hopelessly out of reach just days ago.
In politics, you have to win to win. And in the crucial Super Tuesday primaries in 14 US states, Biden did just that, and Democratic voters singularly obsessed with defeating Trump finally began coalescing around their candidate.
There’s still a long road ahead for the former vice president. His chief rival, Bernie Sanders, won California — the biggest prize of the entire nominating race — where a runaway victory could give the Vermont senator enough delegates to blunt Biden’s gains.
And the former vice president’s turnaround was made all the more remarkable because of his plunge from front-runner status, bruised and battered by a meandering campaign, lackluster fundraising and trademark gaffes.
Still, the whirlwind three days following Biden’s convincing win in South Carolina — which propelled top rivals like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar back the former vice president — underscored the extent to which Democrats were ready to unite behind anyone perceived as ready to take on Trump.
“Just a few days ago the press and the pundits had declared the campaign dead,” Biden told supporters in Los Angeles. “I’m here to report, we are very much alive.”
Four of the six states voting then were captured by the Vermont senator in 2016. Biden will need to step up his fundraising and increase his discipline on the campaign trail, and Sanders will be poised to seize on any missteps by his newly energized rival.