The last few months of the Democratic Presidential Primary race has been fun, filled with feisty jabs, changing polls and recent dropouts. But Super Tuesday proved one major point — once this is all over, Democrats better come together. Fast.

Joe Biden’s sweeping Super Tuesday success could have been surprising after his dismal start in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. But after a closer look at his base’s demographic, Biden’s success might not be much of a surprise.

That is because Joe Biden has something the other candidates are nowhere near achieving, a strong base of Black voters. According to Politico, Biden is crushing runner-up Bernie Sanders in the race for the Black vote by 20 points. While Sanders does have the Latinx vote, it only makes up 7% of the party, while the Black vote is 20% of the party. Biden’s success among Black voters could not be overstated.

Sanders’ potential fall might also be explained by his own base. Sanders’ self-identification as a Democratic-Socialist effectively pushes away some moderate, potentially older Democrats. Leaving Sanders’ base to college-age voters and other young people; which is amazing except for the fact that college-age voters are the least likely to actually come out and vote. According to The New York Times, only 14% of college-age voters are expected to come out and vote.

Despite this, I find Elizabeth Warren’s results to be the most impactful. Warren championed hard work and grassroots campaigning to finish third in her home state. Warren still ended up edging out Michael Bloomberg, a newcomer to the race pumping hundreds of millions of his own dollars into the campaign. The ignorance of Bloomberg’s campaign came to full display after his campaign quit the 2020 race after only winning one primary, American Samoa, which was still more than Warren’s zero.

As the sun rose after Super Tuesday, the Democratic Party woke up more divided than before. The race between the moderate and the self-proclaimed Democratic-Socialist makes this reality so clear. Let’s just hope Democrats learn from 2016, you’re not going to have your perfect nominee. Most of us will be unhappy with the Democrat nominee. But that doesn’t mean you throw your hands up and stay at home. We can compete now for the nomination, but we better come together quickly come July’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee.

 

Rachel Pierce is a junior broadcast and digital journalism and political science major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at repierce@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter at @rpiercesyr

Published on March 4, 2020 at 8:03 pm