There is even less drama on the Democratic side of Super Tuesday’s contests than among the Republicans, but it’s as good a time as any to recall what happened on this date four years ago, because it plays into the Biden team’s narrative about why the president’s allies should stop “bedwetting” about his re-election prospects.
It’s easy to forget, but Biden had a miserable start to the 2020 election season. He finished fourth in the Iowa caucuses, and then a distant fifth in New Hampshire, prompting most of the Democratic establishment to write his campaign off. It wasn’t until his dominant performance in the South Carolina primary — in late February — that sentiment began to shift.
Just one week later, Biden put the nail in the nomination coffin by winning 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday, including all contests in the Deep South. That result forced most of his rivals — other than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who won the other four Super Tuesday states — to exit the Democratic race.
This is important to the president’s team because they believe it sets something of a template for how Biden runs: he’s a marathoner, not a sprinter. Biden starts slow, they argue, but the overwhelming logic of his candidacy gradually overwhelms voters.
Will it happen again in 2024? It’s impossible to say, but almost all presidential contests start as a referendum on the incumbent. But as November gets closer, it becomes more of a choice. When it’s just about Biden, he does badly. When voters see it as a choice between Biden and Trump, Democrats believe he will see the polls start to turn around.
Read the full article here
