The NPR Politics Podcast - Joe Biden Wins Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi Primaries

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

Joe Biden's campaign momentum continued on Big Tuesday, with decisive wins in at least three of six primary elections. The results paint a grim picture for Bernie Sanders and his chances of securing the nomination. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, campaign correspondents Asma Khalid and Scott Detrow, and senior political editor and correspondent Ron Elving.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign. I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the campaign as well. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And the time now is 11.32 p.m. on Tuesday, March 10th. Big Tuesday, as we have branded it. Six more states have voted in the Democratic primary, and Joe Biden, former vice president, has won at least three of them. Tonight, we are a step closer to restoring

decency, dignity, and honor to the White House. That's our ultimate goal. And guys, usually at this point in the podcast, I'm asking you what noisy ballroom you're in, but you're not. Where are you guys? Yeah, I'm actually not even in the state I plan to be in tonight. I'm in Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, Bernie Sanders' home city. He was initially scheduled to be in Cleveland, Ohio tonight, but as the traveling press was making its way to the airplane to fly to Cleveland, Sanders decided to cancel the rally in Cleveland. That's because the Ohio governor had just decided that there should be

no more indoor sporting events. The Sanders campaign has been being asked a lot of questions about when they would start canceling rallies because of coronavirus concerns, and they made the decision to cancel the rally. They went to Vermont instead, and we ended up, for a couple different reasons, not hearing from Bernie Sanders at all tonight. And Asma, where are you right now? Well, I'm still in Cleveland, in part because Joe Biden was also, well, in major part because Joe Biden was actually supposed to be here. He canceled his rally as well tonight here in Ohio because of concerns around the coronavirus.

And so he went on to Philly, but I could not seem to catch a flight that would logistically get me to Philly at the appropriate hour. So we are at a hotel here in Cleveland where no candidates actually are today. And Tam, I know you didn't ask, but I'm in boring old D.C. There we go. So let's go back to the results here. The states that we know that he's won, according to the AP calls, are Mississippi and Missouri, and most notably, Michigan, which is a state that Sanders won narrowly in 2016, but it was a surprise win and really kept his campaign going. This time, I mean, we were saying just yesterday

that this was sort of a must-win for him. Yeah, it really was. This is the site of Sanders' biggest win in the 2016 primary against Hillary Clinton, huge symbolic value for his national identity. And more importantly than that, it was the state with the biggest delegates on the line tonight.

His campaign really focused on Michigan more than any other state. He announced and then canceled rallies in Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois in order to be in Michigan more, put it all on the line, and he lost by a significant margin. And I think it raises really big questions about what the path forward is for Bernie Sanders. He does not have a delegate lead. He did not have one as of last week. And it's hard to see him getting one at any point in time, given the margins that Joe Biden is racking up and given the types of states that are voting over the next few weeks. So I think the Sanders campaign has a lot of hard questions going forward. And to put a fine point on it or a point on it, Andrew Yang, who was one of the candidates who was running in the primary and whose motto is math, said live on CNN that the math says that Biden is going to be the nominee.

Well, he's approaching 800 delegates at this point. And that is to say not that he has half what he needs to be nominated, but he is closer to having half of all of the allocated delegates than anybody else. And Bernie Sanders is about 150 delegates behind. Now, that may not seem like so much when you have 577 coming up on March 17th, and even more, 663 late in April, if you can keep going that far, when some of the most populous states in the country are voting. But you have to win overwhelmingly to overcome the delegate lead that Joe Biden already has set up. That's what we saw in 2008. It's what we saw in 2016. And that is becoming increasingly implausible for Bernie Sanders. I mean, it's worth pointing out that when we saw how Biden first started winning primaries last week, there was a lot of focus on

his strength with African American voters in the South. What today proves is that Joe Biden isn't just winning black voters, and he's not just winning states because of his, you know, dominance there. If you look at Michigan, he did better than Sanders with white voters. And that's really important to pay attention to because it looks like as, you know, support has kind of consolidated around Biden as the potential nominee, he seems to be pulling away support from some folks that we initially had seen to be more willing to go with Bernie Sanders. And young voters, according to the exit poll, Scott, didn't turn out as much. Yeah, and that was one of the biggest shifts that I noticed in what Bernie Sanders was saying at his rallies over the past week.

He was still getting enormous crowds like he always does. But for the first few contests, he would end his rallies with this big prediction. We're going to have record turnout in Iowa. We're going to have record turnout in New Hampshire. We're going to see a youth vote we've never seen before. First-time voters are coming out. And it just didn't happen, state after state, even the states that he won. So one moment that really jumped out to me, this big rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan, ton of young people there, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking

with him. And Sanders didn't make a prediction like that. He almost begged the crowd saying, look, young voters aren't showing up. You need to get your friends to show up. Voting matters. You need to help me here. We need you to come out to vote or to vote early. We need you to bring out your friends and families and co-workers. Tell your friends that you're tired of them complaining about high tuition and student debt,

lack of health care and low wages and unaffordable housing. Tell them to stop complaining and to stand up and fight back. So the confidence that he can bring these young voters out has just disappeared. And exit poll after exit poll shows they aren't showing up in the numbers that he needs. We shouldn't conclude that people are not interested in this primary contest because turnout is very good in state after state. And some of these states are even setting records for turnout in this primary. And they're certainly rivaling the turnout we saw in the 2008 Obama versus Hillary Clinton contest. So it's not overall turnout that's down. It's the disappointment on the part

of the Sanders forces that they're not seeing more people from the under 30 group. And Biden, in his speech tonight, made a direct appeal to Sanders supporters as if to like sort of give them a little nudge. And I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless energy and their passion. We share a common goal, and together we'll defeat Donald Trump. We'll defeat him together. I heard that statement as a man who is supremely confident of his victory. I mean, the fact that he was thanking Bernie Sanders and thanking their supporters, I mean, that's something that usually a victorious nominee would make after a candidate or one of his rivals has conceded. Bernie Sanders has not conceded.

He just didn't come out and speak tonight. And it felt really strange to hear those words from Biden, given that we didn't hear anything from Sanders today. Okay, well, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, the path forward. This message comes from NPR sponsor Indeed. When it comes to hiring, you need help getting to your shortlist of qualified candidates fast. With Indeed.com, you can post a job in minutes, set up screener questions, then zero in on qualified candidates using an intuitive online dashboard. And when you need to hire fast, accelerate your results with sponsored jobs. New users can try for free at indeed.com slash NPR. Terms, conditions, and quality standards apply.

Offer valid through March 31st, 2020. On a secret military recording, a sound so haunting, one scientist believed it could change the world. My mind was racing as I listened to this, and I thought, this, this is the way. Join NPR's Invisibilia for the first episode of our new season. And we're back. And as we mentioned, we have results from three states from Big Tuesday. We are missing results from three others. Those are North Dakota, Idaho and Washington State. Earlier tonight on our special election coverage, NPR talked to South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn, who endorsed Joe Biden right before the South Carolina primary. And he was arguing that they should just shut it all down. I think when the night is over, Joe Biden will be the prohibitive

favorite to win the Democratic nomination. And quite frankly, if the night ends the way it has begun, then I think it is time for us to shut this primary down. It's time for us to cancel the rest of these debates. That is a pretty bold, arguably controversial idea. I don't think it's arguably controversial at all. I think it's very controversial. And I think when you wonder why Sanders supporters get frustrated with the Democratic National Committee and the establishment, as they put it, it's things like that. I don't think ending debates would help Biden. I think it would do the opposite. I think forcing this primary to end is not something that brings people along to your campaign.

But I think what Clyburn is saying here is that there's not much more to be gained from playing out the whole process other than to have the actual votes. Let's just have the votes. But we don't really need to have any more debates. I think Joe Biden will want to debate. And certainly Bernie, if he remains a candidate, is going to want another shot at his rival. I look back also to 2008, which was the last time that Democrats took the White House when there was this long contested process. And what I heard from a lot of Democrats that cycle was that they appreciated that there was a long drawn out contest because they felt like it made Barack Obama into a stronger candidate. And frankly, I have heard that from some progressive groups

suggesting that they feel the pressure needs to be put on Joe Biden and they want to continue to push him and sort of cutting this process short, they feel doesn't really allow them to do that. And one other thing that happened today before the results came in was the Democratic National Committee and CNN decided that that debate that's happening next weekend will not have an audience, will not have that spin room of reporters. It'll be just happening in a studio to cut back on the amount of people traveling and gathering. One question I have for you guys is, before Biden started winning everything, there were a lot of very serious questions about whether he was a good candidate, whether he was somebody who was going to make it and stand up to Donald Trump

and whether he could win any support from young voters. And, you know, in the exit polls, it sure looks like Bernie Sanders is winning young voters in a big way. That's what the exit polls show. And, you know, there will be questions about if he is the nominee, the degree to which he is able to win over young voters. That was a challenge for Hillary Clinton in 2016. And, you know, some young voters decided to sit the election out and not vote for either the Republican or the Democrat that year. Well, another challenge that Joe Biden is facing is that the Trump forces have already wheeled their guns around from aiming at Bernie Sanders when they thought he was going to be the opponent

to aiming at Joe Biden and his son Hunter. And we're going to hear a great deal about all the troubles of the Bidens. And we're going to also hear a great deal about whether or not Joe Biden is up to the task of running or being president of the United States physically or mentally. That's already begun. All right. So that is a wrap for today. For more details on the state by state results and the ones that we didn't get yet, go to NPR.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Asma Khalid. I'm covering the presidential campaign.

I'm Scott Detrow. I'm covering the campaign as well. And I'm Ron Elving, editor correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.