Michael Bloomberg’s abrupt exit Wednesday from the Democratic presidential race opened a clear path to the nomination for Joseph R. Biden, who has harnessed a surge of anti-Trump energy in the Democratic Party to block the far-left movement of Sen. Bernard Sanders.
Mr. Bloomberg immediately hopped aboard the Biden bandwagon, making him the latest in a series of high-profile Democrats to rally behind the former vice president.
“I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden.”
The post-Super Tuesday development had Mr. Sanders sounding familiar themes Wednesday, describing his campaign as a rejection of the billionaire class epitomized by Mr. Bloomberg and the Democratic Party establishment that rallied around Mr. Biden.
Speaking at a press conference in his hometown of Burlington, Mr. Sanders said that he was “disappointed” with the results and the fact that he couldn’t motivate more young people to vote on Tuesday.
But he also saw Tuesday as a chance to reset the race as a choice between sticking with the status quo and delivering the sort of change needed to lift up the middle-class and the working poor.
“Joe and I have very different voting records. Joe and I have a very different vision for the future of this country and Joe and I are running very different campaigns, and my hope is in the coming months we will be able to debate and discuss the very significant differences that we have,” Mr. Sanders said at a press conference in Burlington, Vermont.
“Joe is running a campaign which is obviously heavily supported by the corporate establishment,” he said. “At last count he had received funding from at least 60 billionaires. Our campaign has received more campaign contributions from more Americans, averaging $18.50, than any campaign in the history of our country.”
Mr. Biden learned Wednesday that he had also carried the state of Maine, making him the winner of 10 of the contests that played out across 14 states and American Samoa, a U.S. territory.
The 77-year-old Mr. Biden dominated among black voters and outperformed Mr. Sanders in suburbs across the nation, buoyed by the support of late-breaking voters whose No. 1 priority is ousting President Trump.
Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report said Mr. Biden is now in the driver’s seat as the contest moves into the March 10 contests in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington.
“The trajectory of the Democratic primaries is clear: it would take a miracle for Sanders to prevent Biden from becoming the nominee,” Mr. Wasserman said on Twitter.
He said that Mr. Sanders benefited from the early votes that had been cast in states before Mr. Biden resuscitated his campaign with a victory over the weekend in South Carolina.
The setback for Mr. Sanders opened the floodgates to conspiracy theories, finger-pointing and more allegations that the election was “rigged’ from the Vermont independent’s supporters.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren emerged as a favorite target of Sanders backers, who claimed she cost him votes. The hashtag WarrenDropOut trended on Twitter.
Mr. Sanders said he spoke with Ms. Warren and that she was reassessing her campaign. He described her as a “very, very, excellent senator” and said people should “respect the time and the space that she needs to make her decision.”
“In terms of vitriol online, I’m disgusted by it,” he said. “I think the Twitter world is an opportunity for people to debate issues … but not to make vitriolic attacks on somebody because you disagreed with them.”
President Trump and his Republican allies, meanwhile, stoked the in-fighting.
“The Democrat establishment is trying to take it away from Bernie Sanders,” Mr. Trump said. There’s no question about that in my mind.”
The Sanders-allied activist group Democracy for America sounded a clarion call.
“Now, the head-to-head race between Biden and Bernie — the Democratic establishment versus our progressive movement — begins. If we want a progressive in the White House, we need to put everything we’ve got behind Bernie,” DFA Chairman Charles Chamberlain said in a fundraising email.
“The establishment always underestimates our movement and we’re once again the underdogs in this race for the presidency, but … we’re about to see Bernie like we’ve never seen him before. He’s going to stay focused, keep working and win,” he said.
Mr. Sanders’ surrogates on Capitol Hill said voters now have a clear choice before them.
“Now we have — for the first time — a very clear race between two strong front-runners,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. “Instead of it being kind of this nebulous argument between the progressive wing and the more conservative wing of the party, I think now what we are talking about is actually a Bernie Sanders candidacy and a Joe Biden candidacy.”
• Gabriella Muñoz contributed to this report.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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