Former US president Joe Biden scored decisive victories in all three major Democratic primaries held on Tuesday, earning him a nearly insurmountable lead over US Senator Bernie Sanders in their race for the party’s presidential nomination.
As the US grappled with combating the spreading coronavirus pandemic, voters handed Biden victory in delegate-rich Florida, as well as Illinois and Arizona.
The command performance speaks to the eagerness of many Democrats to coalesce around a moderate flag bearer, to challenge US President Donald Trump, after several other candidates dropped out of the contest in recent weeks and endorsed Biden.
Photo: AFP
In Florida, the 77-year-old won 62 percent to 23 percent against Sanders, a 78-year-old self-described “democratic socialist” senator.
Biden was ahead by 23 percentage points in Illinois, with 89 percent of precincts reporting.
In Arizona, where polls closed last, Biden was coasting to a third definitive win — and his 19th victory in the past 24 contests.
“Our campaign has had a very good night,” Biden said in televised remarks from his home in Delaware. “We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, and we’re doing it by building a broad coalition that we need to win in November.”
Following a string of victories in high-profile contests starting with South Carolina late last month, and continuing into Tuesday, Biden now has a commanding lead in the all-important race for the delegates needed to become the nominee.
Political analyst David Axelrod concluded that Sanders was a mortally wounded candidate.
“No Dem has ever come back from anything like this deficit,” tweeted Axelrod, chief strategist for former US president Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns. “The race for the nomination is over. That is the reality @BernieSanders faces.”
Biden’s delegate count on Tuesday stood at 1,147 compared with Sanders’ 861, according to a New York Times rolling tally. A candidate needs 1,991 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination and face Trump in the November election.
Ohio, was scheduled to vote on Tuesday, but postponed its elections until June on the orders of Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican who told voters to stay home during the escalating public health emergency.
Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez blasted Ohio’s unprecedented move for breeding “more chaos and confusion.”
He sought to head off more states from taking similar actions, urging those with upcoming primaries to expand vote-by-mail and absentee balloting, as well as polling station hours.
The Ohio Democratic Party on Tuesday afternoon sued Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose over his decision to set a new primary date, saying that power rests only with the state legislature.
Meanwhile, Sanders drew 5.3 million views at three online events, with the help of friends like Neil Young, dwarfing the numbers of those watching Biden’s tele-town hall on Monday about the pandemic.
On Saturday, he hosted a “fireside chat” livestreamed from his home in Burlington, Vermont, that his campaign said was viewed more than 2.8 million times.
He picked up another 1 million views with an hour-long policy video program, and racked up 1.6 million views with a “digital rally” on Monday that featured appearances by Young, actress Daryl Hannah and the Free Nationals.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS