The resurrection of the Biden campaign is poised to be the most consequential development of the 2020 Democratic nomination process. Within a little more than a week Joe Biden went from running a struggling campaign in a crowded Democratic race, to become the sole moderate candidate left standing to oppose Bernie Sanders. It was always expected that Biden would win the primary in South Carolina. The state’s Democratic electorate is majority African-American – a demographic that forms the backbone of Biden’s support – and the state’s Democrats tends to be more politically moderate than in some of the other early-voting states.
The result in South Carolina however turned out to be nothing short of a landslide. When polling closed on the evening of the 29thof February it became clear that Biden had defied all expectations and predictions. He secured 48.7 % of the statewide vote, thus securing more than twice the number of votes compared to his closest competitor Bernie Sanders, who came in second with 19.7 %. Not only had Biden done better than expected amongst black voters; he also won the white vote. This is an important breakthrough in a nomination contest dominated by concerns relating to electability and who can beat Donald Trump. In South Carolina Biden illustrated that he has what it takes to recreate the coalition between minority voters and white suburbanites that won Democrats the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term elections. South Carolina thus became a turning point since Joe Biden finally appeared like the safe choice everyone had expected him to be all along. His disappointing performance in Iowa and New Hampshire were all but forgotten. Once moderate Democrats were convinced that Biden could win, they flocked behind him.
Tom Steyer – the billionaire who outspent every other candidate in South Carolina – was the first to drop out of the race after finishing third behind Biden and Sanders. Shortly afterwards Pete Buttigieg – who a few weeks earlier trended as a possible frontrunner after winning Iowa – announced that he too would suspend his campaign and endorse Biden. Amy Klobuchar soon followed suit, and thus Biden went into Super Tuesday as the clear moderate alternative to Bernie Sanders.
Super Tuesday turned out to be another success for Biden. He won all states except Sanders’ home state of Vermont, and the Western states of California, Utah, and Colorado. Whereas Democratic voters had not been too enthused by the Biden candidacy in the first primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, these sentiments clearly dissipated in time for Super Tuesday. Biden’s ability to win states as different as Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, North Carolina, and Massachusetts, clearly shows that he managed to bring together the broad coalition of moderates that constitute the core of the Democratic party electorate.
There is little doubt that Buttigieg and Klobochar’s decision to exit the race and endorse Biden was vital for Biden’s success on Super Tuesday. Most importantly the consolidation of moderate support behind Biden ended the split-up of the moderate vote, which had allowed Sanders to surge in the earlier stages of the nomination process. The Democratic Party moderates thus seem to have managed what the Republican establishment failed to do during Donald Trump’s unexpected rise to prominence in the 2016 nomination process. Whereas establishment Republican candidates squabbled amongst themselves until Trump had secured enough momentum to prove unstoppable, the Democratic moderates were able to unite just in time to stop a similar populist take-over from the left. Hence Super Tuesday was above all a victory for the Democratic establishment. The primaries illustrated that the Democratic electorate is still primarily moderate in orientation, despite the increasingly vocal left wing of the party led by Bernie Sanders.
We can now see the contours of how the rest of the Democratic nomination process will likely play out. The contest has narrowed down to a race between Biden championing the moderate wing of the party, and Sanders representing the left. Both candidates have already adjusted their rhetoric accordingly. Whereas Sanders emphasises the need for radical change in American social, economic and political life, Biden focuses on bringing back bipartisanship and decency to American politics. These differences in rhetoric are indicative of a more fundamental disagreement about how the Democrats can best win back the White House, whilst also building the congressional majorities that are necessary to implement policy effectively.
Biden’s victory speech in South Carolina was a telling exposition of what his campaign is all about. The speech focused on uniting the nation and stopping what he called “the war between the two parties” that is ripping the country apart. The call to reclaim decency and bipartisanship in American politics is central to Biden’s presidential bid. Most memorably he warned that talk of revolution and socialism would only deepen the divides and fan the flames of conflict. Instead, Democrats need to build on the coalition that won them the House of Representatives in 2018. They need to rally their core supporters, whilst also winning over moderates living in the suburbs who have previously at times voted Republican. This requires a pragmatic approach to politics that focuses on achieving feasible results rather than insisting on ideological purity. Furthermore, Biden’s rhetoric appeals to the influential trope in American culture that the country is a force for good in the world. Americans are at heart a decent people. They are more virtuous than the president that is currently representing them, and the fact that Trump is no good role model for their children is not an unimportant consideration. In a sense one can thus say that Biden’s campaign focuses on making Washington decent again. Hence, there is a sense in which he represents a return to “the good old days.” The question is whether enough people share this nostalgia after four years of Trump in the White House?
Sanders has made it clear that he vehemently opposes this moderate strategy. His position is that a return to politics as usual will not be sufficient to win against Donald Trump in the presidential elections. This analysis relies on the assumption that Americans want to radically revamp the economy and their political system in favour of a more European style welfare state. Furthermore, this position is premised on the notion that Americans have fundamentally lost faith in their governing institutions, and that a revolution needs to occur in the way politics has hitherto been conducted. On this view Trump’s ascent to the Presidency is less an occasional glip, which can occur in even the most established democracy, but rather the symptom of a more deep-rooted and persistent scepticism against established American institutions and elites. Thus, the only way for the Democrats to compete with populism on the right is to embrace their own version of populism on the left.
Needless to say this conclusion is quite depressing for citizens committed to a moderate and consensus-based politics, because political debate deteriorates to an arms race between two increasingly populist fractions. This is not to say that all of Sanders’ key positions are inherently populist. A single-payer health care system, for instance, could indeed be constructed in America if there were stable and persistent political majorities to effectuate it over time. It is however unlikely that the uncompromising style that has marked Sanders’ political career will achieve this multi-decade feat. In fact, there are worries whether the Democrats can even hold on to their majority in the House of Representatives – not to speak of winning back the Senate – if they are led by a figure as divisive as Bernie Sanders. It was not a descent into radicalism that won Democrats the House in 2018, but rather the ability to bring moderates estranged by the Trump Republican Party into the Democratic fold.
For now it is difficult to say how long the contest for the Democratic nomination will continue. Current models from FiveThirtyEight predict that Biden has a 95% chance of securing the Democratic nomination, but there is still the question of how long Sanders will stay in the race if it becomes increasingly clear that he will not win. At the moment it is still within the realm of the possible that Sanders could rebound. If Biden wins in Michigan this Tuesday, however, then this in all likelihood heralds the end of Sanders’ campaign as a serious contender for the nomination. In such a scenario Sanders will have to decide whether he will prioritize the interests of his party over the impulse to fight to the bitter end. In case he choses the latter this will lead to a protracted Democratic primary contest, which will further split the party. If Sanders is serious about his commitment to beat Donald Trump, then he should exit the race once it becomes clear that he does not have a realistic chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. The presidential election will take place in eight months. Democrats need all the time they can get to unify the party and prepare a broad campaign that can oust Donald Trump from the White House.