The NPR Politics Podcast - After More Primaries Biden Grows Lead As Coronavirus Reshapes Primary Calendar

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

Joe Biden now has secured more than half of delegates in the Democratic primary contest, making a Bernie Sanders comeback increasingly unlikely. Biden won primaries in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona on Tuesday night. Sanders gave a speech before voting had ended without mentioning the election at all. Instead, he used the address to debut his proposal to combat the economic impact of the coronavirus. This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, campaign correspondents Asma Khalid and Scott Detrow, and voting reporter Miles Parks.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting and election security. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. And I'm Scott Detrow. I also cover the campaign. And it is 10.46 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17th. Happy St. Paddy's Day. Three states conducted their primary elections today, Florida, Illinois, and Arizona. The Associated Press was able to make a quick call for Joe Biden in Florida and Illinois. We're still waiting on results from Arizona as we tape the podcast.

But I want to start with one of the states that did not vote today, the state of Ohio. The governor there decided to delay in-person voting until June because of the public health threats posed by the coronavirus. Here's Secretary of State Frank LaRose talking to NPR earlier tonight. It was very clear that it was not possible to conduct an election without jeopardizing the lives of Ohioans, nor was it possible to conduct an election that would be legitimate because the governor was effectively telling Ohioans over 65 that they shouldn't leave their homes unless they had an absolute necessity to. And so effectively, 20 percent of our state's population would be told that they have to make a choice

between jeopardizing their health or exercising their constitutional rights. Miles, not an easy decision to delay an election, especially at the 11th hour. No, and it's interesting that the Secretary of State chose to say that it was very clear because as of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it was not clear at all what the state was going to do. So then when the governor and the Secretary of State announced that they were going to try and push off the election, it really confused a lot of voters. It confused precinct workers. I was Twitter messaging with a precinct worker yesterday who was saying up until 9, 10, 11 p.m., she had no idea whether the election was on or off because basically a judge had to step in and say,

no, you do need to hold an election on Tuesday. Then the governor came back and directed his health director to shut down the polling places, which was the final straw on Monday evening that actually meant that this election was off. But we have seen that coronavirus probably did have an impact on turnout today in the states that did hold primaries. It does seem that way, especially in-person turnout in Florida and Illinois, that it may end up having some effect. That said, Arizona and Florida vote mostly by mail at this point. And so the overall turnout in that state, in those states, may not actually be affected that much. We've already seen Florida's overall turnout

surpass what they did in 2016, the Democratic primary. And the same is true in Arizona. Well, let's talk about the results tonight. One big headline, although no surprising headline, President Trump locked down the delegates he'll need to officially secure

the Republican nomination, which will become official later this summer at the convention. No shock, President Trump, Republican nominee. But big night for Joe Biden. Another big night for Joe Biden in these primaries. Early victories in Illinois and Florida shortly after the polls close. Asma, the Biden campaign has to be feeling pretty confident tonight. They are. I was texting with a campaign official earlier who called it Joe-mentum. I mean,

you know, everyone comes up with a random phrase, catchphrases for the moment. But long story short, even before we got results tonight, they were predicting that this was going to be a good night, that they were going to create an even further delegate lead. And that's exactly what they did. And they find that the lead that they've been able to create really does pose challenges for Bernie Sanders. And, you know, I would say that's kind of the message that we heard from Joe Biden's statement tonight. He delivered a pretty short statement from his home in Delaware, and he sounded like a general election candidate. He didn't sound like somebody still running in a presidential primary. This is a moment for each of us to see and believe the best in every one of us. To look out for our neighbor. To understand the fear and stress that so many are feeling.

To care for the elderly, the elderly couple down the street. To thank the healthcare worker, the doctors, the nurses, the pharmacists, the grocery store cashier, and the people restocking the shelves to believe in one another. Because I assure you, when we do that, when we see the best in each of us, we lift this nation up and we'll get through this together. That's how we've always done it. I think like there's a lot of metrics to show how well Joe Biden is doing right now and how much he's beating Bernie Sanders by. But the one thing that I was thinking a lot about was that Bernie Sanders really hammered Biden on a couple of key things over the last few weeks on trade. You know, Biden voting for NAFTA and things like that. Then Biden beats him like by a huge margin in Michigan.

Then Social Security. Sanders over and over again in the debate Sunday night talked about the fact that at one point, Joe Biden did float the idea of, you know, trimming Social Security spending. The state of Florida, where it's probably a bigger issue than any other state. Joe Biden wins by a huge margin and exit polls showed that voters trusted him more than Sanders on Social Security. Those are two ways to show just how well Biden is doing. It also seems like we can't undercount how much the rise of the coronavirus pandemic happening at the exact same time as these Democratic primaries seems to have impacted voters who were making up their minds at the last minute. And those voters, based on exit poll data, seem to have broke tremendously for Joe Biden. Yeah, you know, Sue, and he has certainly tried to emphasize

the experience that he had in the Obama administration and emphasize the fact that really what the country needs right now is somebody who can handle the crisis immediately, that people want immediate action. And to your point, I think that's interesting, because for so long in this primary cycle, we saw that voters were focused on who would be the candidate who could best beat Donald Trump. And now because of the public health crisis we're in, it seems like voters are assessing another quality or characteristic that they're looking for. And that's who could potentially handle this crisis most effectively. Experience has not really had a

great run over the last decade or so in terms of things that people want in a candidate. But when it's literally life and death, maybe it's a lot more valuable all of a sudden. All right, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll talk about where Bernie Sanders goes from here and what we know about the primaries going forward. This message comes from NPR sponsor StoryPoint Vineyards, maker of StoryPoint, a new wine brand who believes wine and storytelling are the perfect pair. StoryPoint grapes are sourced from California's best growing regions, so their wines are never one-dimensional. Consumers on Vivino rank StoryPoint among the top 3% of wines in the world. As a special offer to NPR listeners, shipping is included in your online order. Visit storypointvineyards.com slash politics to purchase.

Change is hard. Transitions can be even harder. But they're also an opportunity to explore and discover and reimagine things you thought you knew. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, the new host of NPR's TED Radio Hour.

And with all this in mind, we've decided to make my entire first episode about reinvention. Subscribe or listen right now. And we're back. And Scott, you've been covering the Bernie Sanders campaign for quite some time now. Tonight, he spoke, but well before the polls closed. is to talk about a series of proposals that we are working on right now and will introduce

to the Democratic leadership as to how we can best go forward. And he did not even mention the fact that he was running for president or that there were any primaries today, which usually isn't a good sign for your presidential campaign. I mean, obviously, we are in the middle of an unprecedented national crisis that we have no idea how it's going to play out. And Bernie Sanders gave a very serious policy speech about what he wanted to see the federal government do. Anything from, of course, expanding health care

to also making sure that no business is actually closed. Just talking about spending a tremendous amount of money trying to prop up workers who are in danger of losing their jobs. Further, we need to provide a direct emergency $2,000 cash payment to every household in America every month for the duration of the crisis to provide them with the assistance they need to pay their bills and take care of their families. I mean, politically, it gave a lot of clues about what's going to come next. I mean, he has lost a lot of states over the last few weeks.

It is increasingly hard to see any sort of path where Bernie Sanders comes back and is the Democratic nominee. But if you take a look at the speech that he gave tonight, and if you look at the speech he gave the day after last week's results, where he just talked about policy he wanted to see Joe Biden address, it seems like Bernie Sanders is spending more time thinking about how he is going to move Joe Biden and the Democratic Party toward his point of view than he is thinking about how he is going to be the nominee for president. That being said, there is no indication at the moment that Bernie Sanders is thinking of dropping out of the race, which makes it really unclear what happens next,

the way that he's signaling versus what his campaign is saying versus the fact that there just aren't going to be any primaries for a few weeks now. Bernie Sanders, like every other Democrat in the race, has said they will support the eventual nominee if it's not them. But that's separate than will the people that supported those candidates show up and vote for whoever is the nominee? And there's a question of will Bernie Sanders supporters, who have a very strong ideology that they share with the candidate, are going to vote for Joe Biden? How hard is it going to be for Joe Biden to appeal to the most loyal Sanders voter to vote for him in November if he is the nominee?

Well, we heard Biden take some steps toward doing that tonight with a speech that made a point to reach out to Sanders supporters. Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. Together, they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country. So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders, I hear you. I know what's at stake. I know what we have to do. Our goal as a campaign and my goal as a candidate for president is to unify this party and then to unify the nation. What stuck out to me in what Joe Biden said there was the specific overture to young voters or the specific, I should say, appeal to young voters. And that's in part because Biden has been consistently losing young voters, according to exit polls,

pretty much in, I believe, almost every single state except for Mississippi. And yet he will, you know, potentially be the Democratic nominee. This is to say he does not need support from young voters in order to become the candidate for the Democratic Party. But he will likely need the support of these same young voters come November if he wants to defeat Donald Trump. He saw what happened with Hillary Clinton when a lot of young voters who supported Bernie Sanders said, hey, you know, we're not going to vote for Clinton or Trump. We're just going to stay home. And he doesn't want a repeat of that. Yeah, I think Joe Biden is going to have to make a couple policy overtures to take a few

steps toward Bernie Sanders on some big policy areas. I feel like it's unlikely that Joe Biden suddenly says, yeah, you know, I'm for Medicare for all, but maybe on climate change. He's got a pretty aggressive plan. But Bernie Sanders has a plan that is far more vast than any other Democratic candidate. That's one area. And I think, you know, that vice presidential pick, we talked the other day about how Biden has promised he will nominate a woman. But I think a younger progressive woman who excites the base of the party would go a long way on this front.

All right. So, Miles, what do we know about where the primaries go in the weeks ahead? Yeah. In the immediate future, the states that are scheduled to vote in April, there's a huge chunk of states we kind of have a little bit of a lull for the next couple of weeks. And then a number of states are scheduled to vote at the end of April. Those states are going to do some soul searching about whether they should think about delaying their primaries like the other states that already have until late May or early June. And then there's going to be a lot of conversations about expanding vote by mail. The states that already have vote by mail infrastructure, you saw Arizona and Florida take advantage of that infrastructure and end up with higher turnout than they did in the 2016 primary, despite these coronavirus concerns. But the states that don't

already have that infrastructure, they're going to really be struggling if they want to try and turn on the vote by mail switch, so to speak, and get a lot more vote by mail ballots out there. It's not super simple, according to experts. All right, we're going to leave it there. But we'll be back in your feeds tomorrow. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. And I'm Scott Detrow. I'm also covering the campaign. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. politics podcast.