News Information and Media Site: On Politics This Week: Biden Takes Charge; Virus Spreads

March 21, 2020

By Maggie Astor and Matt Stevens

Welcome to On Politics on this Saturday morning.

With the coronavirus pandemic front of mind, electoral politics may feel like a distant concern. Yet the Democratic primary is pressing on, even as the public health crisis has hugely altered it.

We’ll get you caught up on everything you might have missed during this frightening and tumultuous week. And you can find complete coverage of the coronavirus here, with no paywall.

Biden swept three more states

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. won primary elections on Tuesday in Florida, Illinois and Arizona by double-digit margins.Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Despite the pandemic, Arizona, Florida and Illinois voted on Tuesday. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. won all three primaries by double-digit margins, dealing what could be the final blow to the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Mr. Biden’s biggest victory came in Florida, where he won by nearly 40 percentage points and carried every county. All together, his performances on Tuesday put him nearly 300 delegates ahead of Mr. Sanders, an effectively insurmountable lead given that about 60 percent of all delegates have now been awarded.

The sweep of his victories — Midwest, Southeast, Southwest — underscored how completely the race has changed since February, when Mr. Biden lost badly in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada before coming back in South Carolina. His resurgence there was driven by his strong support among black voters, but in the three weeks since, he has built a coalition that is both geographically and demographically diverse.

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Read our full report on this week’s primaries here, and four takeaways here. You can also see the full results from Arizona, Florida and Illinois.
Our colleague Nate Cohn explains why it is now nearly impossible for Mr. Sanders to catch up in the delegate count.
In some big down-ballot news, Marie Newman, a progressive backed by the Justice Democrats, defeated Representative Dan Lipinski in Illinois’s Third Congressional District. Our colleague Astead W. Herndon interviewed her.

Coronavirus upended the primaries

The coronavirus is wreaking havoc on the electoral process as millions of Americans, told to leave their homes only for essential tasks, try to figure out whether voting counts as one.

The pandemic hung heavily over this week’s primaries, especially in Illinois, where turnout cratered. (By contrast, turnout in Arizona was higher than usual thanks to an extensive early-voting system, and voters there told our colleague Jennifer Medina that they were hoping to hold on to a bit of normalcy.) Ohio postponed its election entirely.

Now, it’s anyone’s guess when the next primary will happen. Georgia, which had been scheduled to vote this coming Tuesday, postponed its election to May 19, and other states are considering doing the same.

Seven states have postponed so far, and we’re keeping track here.

As elections officials try to navigate the new reality, some are calling for an enormous expansion of voting by mail. In Wisconsin, whose primary is scheduled for April 7, Democrats sued state officials to extend early-voting deadlines.
The virus has also challenged President Trump’s campaign, our colleagues Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman wrote.
Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump, all in their 70s, are at high risk for coronavirus complications because of their age. Here’s what Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders say they’re doing to protect themselves.

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Biden and Sanders debated

Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders stood six feet apart, following the guidelines for social distancing prescribed by public health authorities.Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders had their first one-on-one debate on Sunday, and from the very start, it reflected the bizarre new national reality.

The lecterns were separated by an epidemiologist-approved six feet. The candidates greeted each other with an elbow bump instead of a handshake.

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The first topic was, of course, the coronavirus, and the candidates’ arguments reflected their starkly different worldviews. Mr. Biden cast the fight against the virus as something like a war, requiring a well-tested leader and a full, efficient mobilization of the country’s public health and military resources. Mr. Sanders framed the pandemic’s likely fallout as an indictment of current systems, and as evidence for the necessity of sweeping new programs like “Medicare for all” and economic safety nets.

The biggest non-virus-related moment came when Mr. Biden pledged unequivocally to choose a woman as his running mate if he won the nomination — and Mr. Sanders, prompted to make the same pledge, did not go as far. (“In all likelihood, I will,” he said.)

For more on the debate, you can read our full recap, live analysis and six takeaways. We also fact-checked the candidates and compiled political experts’ reactions.
Our colleagues Matt Flegenheimer and Sydney Ember analyzed this most unusual event.
And Katie Glueck, who covers Mr. Biden, has more information on his running-mate deliberations.

A crossroads for Sanders, and his supporters

With no realistic path to the nomination, Mr. Sanders has a decision to make: Does he stick it out to the bitter end, potentially fracturing the party even further? Or does he drop out now and try to use his influence — and the need for Mr. Biden to win over some of his supporters — to push for a more progressive Democratic platform?

Advisers to Mr. Sanders said on Wednesday, after his losses the night before, that he was considering his next steps. His campaign stopped actively advertising on Facebook this week, which is often a precursor to dropping out.

Regardless of what Mr. Sanders decides or when he makes the decision, Mr. Biden has his own challenge ahead: winning over at least some members of the progressive wing of the party, many of whom are deeply disillusioned by Mr. Sanders’s losses. Toward that end, Mr. Biden has adopted some of Mr. Sanders’s proposals, like tuition-free public college.

Sydney Ember wrote this week about Mr. Sanders’s desire to continue fighting.
You can read more here about how Mr. Biden is trying to reach out to the left.

Gabbard ended her campaign

The Democratic primary officially became a two-person contest on Thursday after Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii dropped out and endorsed Mr. Biden.

Leaning on her military background, Ms. Gabbard — who had been the only woman remaining in the primary — railed for months against “regime-change wars” and advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy. But she won only two delegates in the primary contests, both in American Samoa, where she was born.

She announced last fall that she would not seek re-election to Congress.

On the Republican side, former Gov. William F. Weld of Massachusetts ended his campaign on Wednesday, shortly after Mr. Trump officially earned enough delegates to become the party’s presumptive nominee.

MORE COVERAGE OF THE 2020 RACE

Progressive Ideas Remain Popular. Progressive Presidential Candidates Are Losing. Why?

In state after state, voters say they support liberal policies like single-payer health care, canceling student debt and the Green New Deal. But many are voting for Joe Biden, who has proposed largely moderate ideas.

By Astead W. Herndon

The Bernie Sanders Revolution Has Moved to Mom’s Couch

For some college students who support Mr. Sanders, leaving campus means more time to phone bank, and a captive, if skeptical, audience at home.

By Emma Goldberg

Andrew Yang’s $1,000-a-Month Idea May Have Seemed Absurd Before. Not Now.

Mr. Yang championed putting money in the pockets of every American adult during his presidential campaign. Now, amid the coronavirus crisis, “This thing is going to pass,” he says.

By Matt Stevens and Isabella Grullón Paz

Once Political B-Listers, Governors Lead Nation’s Coronavirus Response

Governors of both parties have taken a lead role in confronting the crisis, asserting themselves in ways that have only highlighted the initial lack of seriousness from the White House.

By Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns