Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1217991
05.03.2020 10 US ELECTION PRIMARIES US media tycoon Michael Bloomb- erg said yesterday he was quitting the Democratic primary race and instead endorsing frontrunner Joe Biden for the White House after being snubbed by voters on Super Tuesday. "ree months ago, I entered the race for president to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump — because it is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult," he said in a statement. e billionaire former mayor of New York spent hundreds of millions of dol- lars on his presidential run, but failed to win any of the 14 states on offer on Su- per Tuesday — the most important day in the Democratic primary season. A resurgent Biden seized the momen- tum in the race with a string of Super Tuesday victories, including key prize Texas, against rival Bernie Sanders. Sanders, a 78-year-old leftist who is running a populist, social democrat- ic campaign aimed at making politics more respondent to the working class, had been the clear leader and was look- ing for a knock-out blow on the most consequential voting day on the prima- ry calendar. Instead, the results signaled a remark- able comeback for Biden, a former vice president under Barack Obama who was projected to win at least nine, and possibly 10, of the nomination contests held across 14 states. Just one week ago the 77-year-old sen- ior statesman saw his campaign teeter on the edge of collapse. Now he is vying once again for frontrunner status. "It's a good night and it seems to be getting even better! ey don't call it Super Tuesday for nothing," Biden told cheering fans in Los Angeles. Biden was practically counted out af- ter a stumbling early campaign, but first began to rebound with a landslide win Saturday in South Carolina. at was followed by coordinated decisions by two other moderate can- didates — Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klo- buchar — to withdraw and endorse their former rival, as the party's estab- lishment dramatically coalesced around Biden days before Super Tuesday. Exit polls showed that about a third of voters had made their decision in the last few days, with late-deciders over- whelmingly supporting Biden. Sanders, self-described democratic socialist, was projected to win his home state of Vermont, Colorado, Utah, and California, the biggest delegate-rich state of all, with a nine-point lead as the count continued on Wednesday morn- ing. e centrist Biden was projected to win in Virginia, North Carolina, Ala- bama, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Massachusetts and even Minnesota — a state where Sanders had been expected to win handily. Well after midnight the projection was made for Biden to win Texas, the sec- ond largest US state, and on Wednesday morning he had a narrow lead in Maine with three-quarters of the vote counted. Sanders had been polling ahead in both states. "We expected a surge. We got a tsu- nami," tweeted analyst David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama's two pres- idential campaigns. "New race. Com- pletely." A defiant Sanders celebrated his own wins earlier in the night by tearing into Trump, calling him "the most dan- gerous president in the history of this country." But he also attacked Biden for having voted for the invasion of Iraq and paint- ed him as tarnished by billionaire and special interest contributors. "We're taking on the political estab- lishment," he said. "You cannot beat Trump with the same-old, same-old kind of politics." Biden saw the results as proof that his bid to bring American politics back to the center, after four years of Trump's right-wing populism, is on a roll. "We are very much alive," he told a crowd in Los Angeles. "Make no mis- take about it, this campaign will send Donald Trump packing." Southern sweep A key takeaway from Biden's long list of wins was his strong support among New race Bloomberg suspends endorses Biden after Super Joe Biden first began to rebound with a landslide win on Saturday in South Carolina