Steve McGookinWith America in the tightening grip of an exponentially-growing Coronavirus – it is now present in all 50 states – and with some 7m people sheltering in place as the Bay Area is in lockdown, voters in some key states had their say on Tuesday in the latest installment of this year’s presidential primaries.
And it was probably the strangest polling day on record, as the country works to contain the virus – with new worries about its impact on younger people – and faces up to the prospect of little less than a medium-term economic catastrophe.
On St Patrick’s Day, Joe Biden, who once called himself “the only real Irishman in the race,” seemed to cement his position as the presumptive Democratic nominee, sweeping the board in Florida, Illinois and Arizona and opening up a “nearly insurmountable” delegate lead over Bernie Sanders, who was said afterwards to be “assessing his campaign.”
* The up-to-date running delegate count is here
“There is no reason for Sanders to stay in this race, no matter how fervent his fans and no matter how passionately he wants to advocate for his policies,” Richard Wolffe wrote in The Guardian. “He has spent the last four years advocating for those policies, pushing the Democratic party towards his ideas to remarkable effect.
“Back in the 2008 election and Barack Obama’s first term, it was unthinkable to propose a public healthcare option: the defeat of Clinton’s healthcare proposals was still too raw, more than a decade after they had failed. Today all the Democratic contenders proposed a public option, and Joe Biden’s healthcare policies are far to the left of Obama’s.”
But if Sanders is looking for the best moment to leave the stage, if indeed that’s what he intends, timing will be crucial. The next big primary date is Wisconsin on April 7, before a group of six contests – including New York and Pennsylvania – at the end of next month. He will find himself under pressure, both from those wanting to start the process of party unity as early as possible, but also from the need to avoid the risks of unnecessary in-person voting at a time of contagion.
There were supposed to be four states decided on Tuesday. Ohio’s Governor, Mike DeWine, ended up closing the polls in his state over a virus-related health warning and postponed the primary until June 2. So there were just three results, and, of course, no exit polling to avoid one-to-one interviews.
In Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state, and usually one of the most volatile in general elections – and now President Trump’s state of residence – Biden’s victory gave him a significant majority of the 219 delegates – the biggest prize of the evening.
Arizona, meanwhile, is set to be a general election battleground for the first time in years and Biden needs to emphasize his outreach to Latino voters to have a chance of flipping the state.
In Illinois there were signs of some potential voting difficulties as calls grew for the increased use of mail-in ballots in the remainder of the primary states, particularly considering the implications if the virus is still preventing large-scale public assembly. Primaries have already been delayed in Maryland and Alabama and on Wednesday, Democratic senators introduced a bill to promote mail-in and early voting.
As well as the practical conduct of the remainder of the primary campaign, attention will increasingly focus on safeguarding the integrity of the general election which is just eight months away.
For now, though, Democrats need to focus their efforts on finding ways to bring the party together ahead of what could turn out to be a “virtual convention” in Milwaukee in July, as well as boosting turnout numbers from what they’ve seen so far. November will likely be a turnout race and a big factor is generating enthusiasm, particularly with the sort of numbers who didn’t vote in 2016.
For Biden, making good on his pledge to choose a woman running mate will be important in generating the kind of enthusiasm his campaign will need – particularly when politics likely isn’t the most important thing on people’s minds.
Another consideration for Democrats is what Tulsi Gabbard might end up doing? If Sanders withdraws and backs Biden, will she run as an independent? UPDATE: Gabbard suspended her campaign on Thursday and endorsed Joe Biden.
There is still far to go and much can change.
But for now there has to be an urgent focus on policy rather than personality – even though we can’t predict what will happen in the next 24 hours let alone by November.
Biden’s resurrection in South Carolina was a pivotal moment in his campaign and he appears to be growing stronger as the party coalesces behind him. But what Biden is particularly good at is reassuring people, and in this crisis, his moment may well have come. As Jennifer Rubin writes at the Washington Post, this is in complete contrast to Trump.
“In moments of national crisis — wars, natural disasters, depressions — great leaders understand the challenge is to inform and enlist the public so that individual fear, panic and unbridled self-interest do not make us collectively worse off.
“Former vice president Joe Biden understands this. He increases his own stature when he deploys a conversational style devoid of high drama. In sober and factual remarks, he seeks to reassure and summon us to act for the common good…
“The contrast with President Trump could not be more striking. Trump — an empty shell of a man in constant need of re-affirmation — uses audiences to assuage his own ego; to rewrite (i.e., lie about) his past failures; to present himself as the most knowledgeable on any subject; and to supercharge his and his base’s sense of victimhood. He is not capable of giving comfort, imparting valuable information or empowering Americans.”
Coronavirus and competence
As the crisis has worsened there have inevitably been increasing questions over President Trump’s leadership and national example.
Trump – who almost as an aside on Tuesday formally secured the Republican nomination – made the strange comment that he “always knew it was a pandemic” as if denying a period where he, his surrogates and almost the entire Republican establishment seemed to be on board with the idea of promoting the “hoax.”
Although he did seem to – in a roundabout way – acknowledge that the White House had been to blame for its own bad news coverage, while at the same time maintaining that the administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis had been strong.
“We’ve done a poor job on press relationships, and I guess, I don’t know who to blame for that. Maybe I can blame ourselves for that. I will blame ourselves. We’ve done a great job. I think we’ve done a poor job in terms of press relationship.”
Meanwhile, his biggest media cheerleaders at Fox News have undergone a dramatic reversal in their approach to the virus.
But throwing the spotlight on this shift probably won’t matter in the grand scheme of things, other than to have helped delay the seriousness with which a lot of Americans took the threat, and perhaps still do. The bigger problem is that Fox’s critics aren’t surprised and their audience largely doesn’t care.
President Trump is discovering, as Dana Milbank wrote, “the perils of the Pinocchio presidency,” whereby if you consciously try to undermine the value of truth, no-one will believe you no matter what you say.
“After encouraging his Fox fan base for weeks to scoff at the virus,” Milbank writes, “Trump now finds that his presidency, the U.S. economy and countless lives depend on him convincing them otherwise.”
There have even been doubts over whether or not the president actually had been tested, as he told the world after being in proximity to Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro and his entourage – some of whom later tested positive – at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Meanwhile, divisiveness persists even in the reason for Trump’s language about the virus, as he continues to call it the “Chinese Virus” as part of an apparent strategy of shifting responsibility and assigning blame.
Gabriel Sherman wrote at Vanity Fair this week about the strategic scramble inside the White House as the stock market has plunged, effectively kicking away the president’s main re-election platform of a strong economy.
“Now that Trump is engaged and the crisis is accelerating—the Dow dropped nearly 3,000 points on Monday—Republicans fear he is operating without a playbook at a time when one is desperately needed,” Sherman writes, and observes that “Every hour seems to bring about a future that would have been unimaginable only days ago.”
Judging from this tweet this morning, though, nothing has changed. And yet everything has changed.
We are heading for significant bailout packages across the world as the pandemic presents an increasingly ominous threat to the global economy. The US Senate on Wednesday evening eventually passed a multibillion-dollar rescue package, including sending checks directly to Americans, with further economic measures likely to come.
Helping those most affected by the sharp downturn will be the challenge for the Democrats now, and particularly for Biden as the nominee-in-waiting, so it is crucial that they come forward with realistic policies that ensure the coming pain is shared – and seen to be shared – fairly, while proposing serious remedies for the inevitable economic mess.
Those running against Trump and the GOP, from the top to the bottom of the ballot, will be making competence and leadership a central election issue.
Yet November will also have to be about rebuilding – both the economy and our civic discourse; but also reconciling groups of citizens with conflicting agendas to the idea of what it means to be American and aspire to a shared national endeavor.
Amid the rampant uncertainty, there is certainly a sliver of a wartime vibe – Trump even referred to himself today as a “wartime president” – of us all being in it together, but in a somewhat surreal context where people’s existing lives could be completely changed long before the election.
On St Patrick’s Day of all days, therefore, it was probably appropriate that some may have looked more enviously than usual towards Ireland. As the nation faces a time of crisis, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar delivered an honest, sombre and pragmatic address, the like of which Americans could only wish their own leader might be capable.
See also
Last Man Standing Mar 10
Mulvaney to be US Special Envoy Mar 7
South Carolina – Comeback Kid Set for Super Tuesday Showdown Mar 2
New Hampshire – Not Even The End of the Beginning Feb 13
Democrats Look to Put Iowa Behind Them Feb 8
And read Julia Flanagan on the Democratic debates here:
Democrats face Foreign Policy Test – December
The Road To Iowa Goes Through Georgia – November
A Dozen Deliberative Dems Debate – October
And Then There Were Ten… For Now – September
