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Sanders
drops
2020
bid,
leaving
Biden as
likely
nominee
By
WILL
WEISSERT
6-8
minutes
WASHINGTON
- Sen.
Bernie
Sanders,
who saw
his once
strong
lead in
the
Democratic
primary
evaporate
as the
party’s
establishment
lined
swiftly
up
behind
rival
Joe
Biden,
ended
his
presidential
bid on
Wednesday,
an
acknowledgment
that the
former
vice
president
is too
far
ahead
for him
to have
any
reasonable
hope of
catching
up.
The
Vermont
senator’s
announcement
makes
Biden
the
presumptive
Democratic
nominee
to
challenge
President
Donald
Trump in
November.
“The
path
toward
victory
is
virtually
impossible,”
Sanders
told
supporters
as he
congratulated
Biden.
The
former
vice
president
is “a
very
decent
man whom
I will
work
with to
move our
progressive
ideas
forward.”
Sanders
initially
exceeded
sky-high
expectations
about
his
ability
to
recreate
the
magic of
his 2016
presidential
bid, and
even
overcame
a heart
attack
last
October.
But he
found
himself
unable
to
convert
unwavering
support
from
progressives
into a
viable
path to
the
nomination
amid
“electability”
fears
fueled
by
questions
about
whether
his
democratic
socialist
ideology
would be
palatable
to
general
election
voters.
The
78-year-old
senator
began
his
latest
White
House
bid
facing
questions
about
whether
he could
win back
the
supporters
who
chose
him four
years
ago as
an
insurgent
alternative
to the
party
establishment’s
choice,
Hillary
Clinton.
Despite
winning
22
states
in 2016,
there
were no
guarantees
he’d be
a major
presidential
contender
this
cycle,
especially
as the
race’s
oldest
candidate.
Sanders,
though,
used
strong
polling
and
solid
fundraising
—
collected
almost
entirely
from
small
donations
made
online —
to more
than
quiet
early
doubters.
Like the
first
time, he
attracted
widespread
support
from
young
voters
and was
able to
make new
inroads
within
the
Hispanic
community,
even as
his
appeal
with
African
Americans
remained
small.
Sanders
amassed
the most
votes in
Iowa and
New
Hampshire,
which
opened
primary
voting,
and
cruised
to an
easy
victory
in
Nevada —
seemingly
leaving
him well
positioned
to
sprint
to the
Democratic
nomination
while a
deeply
crowded
and
divided
field of
alternatives
sunk
around
him.
But
a
crucial
endorsement
of Biden
by
influential
South
Carolina
Rep. Jim
Clyburn,
and a
subsequent,
larger-than-expected
victory
in South
Carolina,
propelled
the
former
vice
president
into
Super
Tuesday,
when he
won 10
of 14
states.
In a
matter
of days,
his top
former
Democratic
rivals
lined up
and
announced
their
endorsement
of
Biden.
The
former
vice
president’s
campaign
had
appeared
on the
brink of
collapse
after
New
Hampshire
but
found
new life
as the
rest of
the
party’s
more
moderate
establishment
coalesced
around
him as
an
alternative
to
Sanders.
Things
only got
worse
the
following
week
when
Sanders
lost
Michigan,
where he
had
campaigned
hard and
upset
Clinton
in 2016.
He was
also
beaten
in
Missouri,
Mississippi
and
Idaho
the same
night
and the
results
were so
decisive
that
Sanders
headed
to
Vermont
without
speaking
to the
media.
The
coronavirus
outbreak
essentially
froze
the
campaign,
preventing
Sanders
from
holding
the
large
rallies
that had
become
his
trademark
and
shifting
the
primary
calendar.
It
became
increasingly
unclear
where he
could
notch a
victory
that
would
help him
regain
ground
against
Biden.
Though
he will
not be
the
nominee,
Sanders
was a
key
architect
of many
of the
social
policies
that
dominated
the
Democratic
primary,
including
a
“Medicare
for All”
universal,
government-funded
health
care
plan,
tuition-free
public
college,
a $15
minimum
wage and
sweeping
efforts
to fight
climate
change
under
the
“Green
New
Deal.”
He
relished
the fact
that his
ideas —
viewed
as
radical
four
years
ago— had
become
part of
the
political
mainstream
by the
next
election
cycle,
as
Democratic
politics
lurched
to the
left in
the
Trump
era.
Sanders
began
the 2020
race by
arguing
that he
was the
most
electable
Democrat
against
Trump.
He said
his
working-class
appeal
could
help
Democrats
win back
Rust
Belt
states
that
Trump
won in
2016,
including
Michigan,
Wisconsin
and
Pennsylvania.
But as
the race
wore on,
the
senator
reverted
to his
2016
roots,
repeatedly
stressing
that he
backs a
“political
revolution”
from the
bottom
up under
the
slogan
“Not me.
Us.”
Sanders
also
faced
persistent
questions
about
being
the
field’s
oldest
candidate.
Those
were
pushed
into the
spotlight
on Oct.
1, when
he was
at a
rally in
Las
Vegas
and
asked
for a
chair to
be
brought
on stage
so he
could
sit
down.
Suffering
from
chest
pains
afterward,
he
underwent
surgery
to
insert
two
stints
because
of a
blocked
artery,
and his
campaign
revealed
two days
later
that he
had
suffered
a heart
attack.
But
a
serious
health
scare
that
might
have
derailed
other
campaigns
seemed
only to
help
Sanders
as his
already-strong
fundraising
got
stronger
and
rising
stars on
the
Democratic
left,
including
Rep.
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez,
endorsed
him.
Many
supporters
said the
heart
attack
only
strengthened
their
resolve
to back
him.
Massachusetts
Sen.
Elizabeth
Warren
outshone
him
throughout
much of
the
summer,
but
Sanders
worked
his way
back up
in the
polls.
The two
progressive
candidates
spent
months
refusing
to
attack
each
other,
though
Sanders
offered
a strong
defense
of
Medicare
for All
after
Warren
offered
a
transition
plan
saying
it would
take the
country
years to
transition
to it.
The
two
longtime
allies
finally
clashed
bitterly,
if
briefly,
in
January,
when
Warren
said
that
Sanders
had
suggested
during a
2018
private
meeting
that a
woman
couldn’t
be
elected
president.
Sanders
denied
saying
that,
but
Warren
refused
to shake
his
outstretched
hand
after a
debate
in Iowa.
Warren
left the
race
after a
dismal
Super
Tuesday
showing
in which
she
finished
third in
her own
state.
In
2016,
Sanders
kept
campaigning
long
after
the
primaries
had
ended
and
endorsed
Clinton
less
than two
weeks
before
their
party’s
convention.
This
cycle,
he
promised
to work
better
with the
national
and
state
parties.
His
dropping
out of
the race
now
could be
a step
toward
unity.
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