Takeaways from Super Tuesday's Democratic primaries

WASHINGTON — Super Tuesday marked former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s first time appearing on the Democratic presidential ballot — a more than $500 million quest that scored him an outright victory in only the far-flung U.S. territory of American Samoa.

Former Vice President Joe Biden entered Tuesday’s series of primary contests having spent virtually no money on campaign ads in any of the 14 states at play, but notching wins in 10 states.

Political analysts say Tuesday’s votes showed just how important name recognition and retail politics were to winning over voters.

For Bloomberg, Biden and the other presidential hopefuls in the race — Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — Tuesday was not just about winning in each state; it was about making a play for the more than 1,300 Democratic delegates that were up for grabs that are allocated based on each candidate’s performance.

Bloomberg and Warren campaign aides made the case Tuesday that none of the four candidates would reach the 1,991 delegates needed to secure the nomination ahead of this summer’s Democratic National Convention, raising the prospect of a contested convention that would decide the nominee. The Sanders and Biden campaigns, meanwhile, framed the primary season as a two-way race moving forward.

Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s vote.

Biden's surge

Buoyed by a decisive victory in South Carolina on Saturday, Biden stacked up victories in 10 of the 14 Super Tuesday states, despite being vastly outspent by Sanders and Bloomberg.

“I’m here to report we are very much alive,” Biden told rallygoers in Los Angeles, noting that his campaign had been written off after his losses last month in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Entering Super Tuesday, Biden’s campaign announced that he planned to spend less than $1 million in advertising in some, not all, of the states at play, compared with the $20 million spent by Sanders and more than $200 million by Bloomberg.

Former Long Island Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat supporting Biden, said the increase in media coverage surrounding Biden following his South Carolina win and his recent string of prominent endorsements may have offered a boost to a campaign that’s been vastly outspent.

“With breathtaking speed, Biden has established a momentum that’s being fueled by earned media,” said Israel. “All the conventional rules of a presidential campaign are being upended, including the one about money winning elections."

Brad Bannon, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic campaign strategist, said, “South Carolina was the beginning of a chain reaction” for Biden.

The once-splintered field for the Democratic Party’s center lane merged behind Biden after moderates Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the race. Quickly endorsed by both ex-candidates, Biden posted double-digit leads in several states on Tuesday, including Virginia and North Carolina.

“Momentum is the most powerful force in politics,” tweeted David Plouffe, President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager. “If [Biden] can combine that with more resources, more organization and, most crucially, continued strong candidate performances, the rest of March, which is favorable to him, could be even better than tonight.”

Bloomberg's $500 million gamble

Bloomberg entered Super Tuesday having spent more than $500 million on building a national campaign operation — but all of that money amounted to only one clear victory on the electoral map, far outside of the continental United States.

American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean, went for Bloomberg, giving him four of its six delegates.

Bloomberg experienced a surge in polling in late January and February amid a massive ad blitz, but he struggled to overcome his shaky debut debate performance in Las Vegas last month, with polls after the debate showing a slowdown in support.

“This is a case that shows money can’t buy love,” said Bannon.

John Farmer, director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, said Bloomberg demonstrated “that you can buy a respectable showing, but you can’t go out there and buy a victory in these primaries unless you are meeting people and participating in the campaign on a personal level.”

“As a percentage of the money he spent, it’s probably a bit disappointing for him, but he doesn’t have the long history with the American voters that Joe Biden does and that Bernie Sanders does,” said Farmer.

Bloomberg has long argued that his strategy ultimately was to pick up enough delegates from each state to make his case for the nomination at the Democratic National Convention, but as results were still being tallied Wednesday he had only picked up about 50 delegates. (With the delegate race shaping up to be a two-way contest between Sanders and Biden, Bloomberg decided Wednesday to bow out of the race and throw his support behind Biden.)

Sanders' momentum stalls

Sanders was projected to win four states — his home state, Colorado, Utah and delegate-rich California.

California provided Sanders a big win for the night, allowing him to likely collect a sizable share of the more than 400 delegates, once all the votes are tallied. Those delegates will be critical for Sanders, who entered Tuesday leading the delegate count, but now finds himself trailing Biden. Biden had collected 566 delegates to Sanders’ 501, as of Wednesday afternoon, according to The Associated Press. Those figures did not represent a complete picture of the delegates from California and Texas, which were still counting votes late Tuesday.

Biden’s victories on Saturday and Tuesday, including an upset over Sanders in Texas, have cut into some of the momentum Sanders’ campaign was experiencing following his performance in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

“Joe Biden has certainly cut into his status as the front-runner, that status no longer really applies,” Farmer said of Sanders. “Essentially the Democrats did what the Republicans failed to do in 2016; they coalesced behind one centrist candidate.”

Warren's winnowing chances

The prospect of Warren remaining in the race looked slim as early results in her home state of Massachusetts showed her running in third behind Biden and Sanders.

“It’s tough to go on when you can’t win your home state,” Bannon said. “How can you convince someone in Illinois or Michigan to vote for you when you can’t win your own home state?"

Ultimately, in the race for the Democratic Party’s left-of-center progressive wing, it was difficult for Warren to overcome the head start that Sanders received by building on his 2016 campaign.

“Bernie put his stamp on the progressive voters in the party, and Warren wasn’t able to get around that,” Bannon said. “A lot of progressives who voted with Bernie in 2016 were more dedicated to his campaign this year; they kept their commitment to him. Warren wasn’t able to get around that.”

Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau, in a memo to supporters earlier in the week, insisted there was still a path forward to the nomination. He said the campaign’s “internal projections continue to show Elizabeth winning delegates in nearly every state in play on Super Tuesday, and in a strong position to earn a sizable delegate haul coming out of the night.”

Lau argued that with more contests on deck this month and in early April, “the Wisconsin primary [on April 7] is halftime, and the convention in Milwaukee is the final play.”

Warren, speaking at a campaign rally in Detroit on Tuesday, urged voters to “cast a vote from your heart.”

“What I see happening is a lot of folks trying to turn voting into some complicated strategy," Warren said. "Cast a vote from your heart. And vote for the person you think will make the best president of the United States of America.”