What A Day - They Joe Up So Fast

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

Yesterday was Super Tuesday, where 14 states and one territory voted in the presidential primary. Former VP Joe Biden over-performed in what some (read: none) are already calling "Joebal Warming," while Senator Bernie Sanders didn’t do as well as some predicted. Final delegate totals are still coming in—we’ll talk you through what we know. And in headlines: deadly storms in Tennessee, an election update in Israel, and the Knicks lose their biggest fan.

It's Wednesday, March 4th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day coming to you after a very relaxing night staring at prediction needles on the New York Times website. I just don't like that the site auto-refreshes. I get that it's good if you click away or something, but I feel like they're trying to tell me what I can and can't see.

Yeah, I would prefer election results from a town crier that just, when they're done, gets on a soapbox somewhere and says, hear ye, hear ye, Texas is in. On today's show, Super Tuesday. That's just going to be the thing that we do now. Yeah, yesterday was Super Tuesday, where 14 states and one territory voted in the presidential primary. Almost a third of delegates were at stake. And for those of you who didn't tune in to watch the results with us on Crooked's live stream, shame on you. We're going to give you an update on everything we know so far, plus everything we still don't know.

And the big takeaways of the entire night. So here is a quick run through of the results that we know so far. Former Vice President Joe Biden won Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Senator Bernie Sanders won California, Colorado, Utah, and Virginia. Senator Bernie Sanders won California, Colorado, Utah, and Vermont. Maine is too close to call. And for now, we're going to hold off on the whole delegate count until all of the results are in. So let's get into how the night went for the candidates starting with Joe Biden. It's still early, but things are looking awful, awful good. For those who have been knocked down, counted out, left behind, this is your campaign.

That was Biden speaking at his election night rally in California. But overall, Biden overperformed almost everywhere in all the states that were voting. And we openly wondered if the endorsements from Klobuchar and Buttigieg would make a difference in all this. Akilah, what do we think now? Well, we can't say for certain what pushed people to vote for Biden, but they voted in record numbers some places. Fresh from his massive victory in the South Carolina primary and subsequent endorsements, Biden won nine states outright, and he looks like he's going to get delegates in almost all of the states. Yeah, that's right. And specifically, Biden did well across the South. But want to talk about Virginia for a second?

Sure. So the Virginia win was one of the biggest surprises of the night. As recently as Monday, 538 had Joe Biden trailing five points behind Senator Sanders. Now we have the actual results and Biden won 53 percent of the vote. Senators got 23 percent and no one else crossed 15 percent to get delegates in Virginia. Biden's big night across southern states is due in large part to African-American populations. We've said it before. I'll say it again. Black voters are absolutely an important demographic to win over and you cannot win without them, which was especially apparent last night. And let me just pause for a second to make a quick point. There's been major discourse online and in punditry regarding Sanders versus the establishment. You know, that Biden is surging because of the establishment coalescing behind him. But South Carolina and states with the highest African-American populations voted overwhelmingly for Joe Biden last night. So, yeah, it would appear that it's not just the big endorsements that's deciding these

races. It's black voters. Yeah. And the margins were very clear in all those states. And we have some exits to back that up. Anything else on Virginia, though, before we move on? Yeah, well, I think what was more shocking was really the record turnout in Virginia. In 2016, turnout was around 780,000.

And last night it was a much, much higher 1.3 million. So, you know, that's a great sign for people looking to understand voter excitement going into November. And typically when voter turnout is high, Democrats do well. Yeah. So that's good news. And this is probably a good moment to talk about the Bloomberg of it all. So he only got about 10 percent of the vote in Virginia, which put him in fourth place there behind Biden, Sanders and Warren. You know, Bloomberg's initial reason to enter the race was because he felt none of the field was especially electable or able to beat Donald Trump in the general. And a big part of his strategy was flooding the airwaves with a

massive $18 million ad buy for Super Tuesday in Virginia alone, which was more than 15 times what Biden spent there. But I think the buzziest fact that was sort of floating around on Twitter all night was, you know, and it was really about the upset was that Biden only had one field office in all of Virginia. Yeah, it's really nuts, honestly. I mean, a lot of the focus on organization and staffing didn't seem to be all that impactful. Biden was behind on all of that. And remember, just a few days ago, we were talking about Biden winning his first primary in three runs for the presidency. And here we are now with all of these victories on a single night. So where does the Biden campaign go from here?

I mean, presumably out for drinks. It was just wild. I mean, we can't downplay how huge the night was. So I just have to reiterate, no one expected this, really. You know, 13 more states and territories vote the rest of the month. Some of them are the biggies, though. That's Ohio, Illinois, Florida, Michigan, so on, so forth. So, you know, I don't think that Team Biden is going to be able to rest for very long, but it would appear that Joe Minton is real and something worth paying attention to.

Yeah. And now he's going to have more money that comes in because of this and the ability to build out more for the remaining primaries. Not that that was necessarily determinative on its own on Tuesday because he was well behind, like I said, but that's going to be important going forward. And if people didn't see him as the primary Sanders alternative before, they certainly will now. That's right. Well, that was Biden's night. What do we know about Bernie Sanders' night so far? Yeah, so Sanders won Colorado, Utah, and Vermont, and it looks like he's going to get delegates in almost all of the states. The Associated Press called the race in California for Sanders. That's important because it's the biggest delegate prize of the night, but we don't know the margins there yet and who else

is going to get delegates and how that's going to shake out. That will ultimately help us know who comes out on top in the overall delegate race. There's still a lot of votes left to count and reports of long lines in California and Texas. But here is Sanders addressing supporters in Vermont. We are going to defeat Trump because we are putting together an unprecedented, grassroots, multi-generational, multiracial movement. It is a movement which speaks to the working families of this country who are sick and tired of working longer hours for low wages and seeing all new income and wealth going to the top 1%. To get a little more granular here, the Sanders campaign was making a play for Minnesota and Massachusetts, and they fell short there. And to the surprise of a lot

of people, both of those states went to Biden, which kind of speaks to the night that he was having. Additionally, in states that Sanders won that held caucuses last time, he had some mixed results on Tuesday. For instance, in Colorado, he held on, but in Minnesota, he did not. And in Maine, the race is still too close to call. Across the exits for him, the apparent strengths in constituency so far, younger voters, Latinx voters. But like we told you all, we have to wait for more to see how things shake out from last night to get a complete picture of just what happened throughout Tuesday in terms of the delegate count. That's right. OK, then we have former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who we talked about a little bit, plus Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Let's quickly run through what went on with them. You know, Tulsi, it's all aloha, you know, it's all it's all aloha to me.

So let's start with Bloomberg. As we talked about before, he was thinking that he could bypass these early voting states and just spend an unbelievable amount of money on ads and organization in the Super Tuesday states and that, you know, we would be sitting here saying, OK, Michael Bloomberg might be the nominee. Well, the results from the night, he only won American Samoa. Yeah, that was it. Bloomberg spent more than 92 million in the 11 states that he lost last night, and he spent more than 127 million additionally between California and Texas, where the full results are still coming in. But he's currently not favored to win either of them trying. I'm not laughing at him. You know, I'm just saying this is this is bleak. Yeah. And, you know, the Bloomberg campaign said that they're going to be reassessing where things stand today. I don't know that they're going to necessarily be able to put together a strong argument for

why more of this money should be going into this race. But it's interesting because we saw a microcosm of the same thing happen in South Carolina, where another billionaire, Tom Steyer, spent a fortune only to come in third with a Biden route there. So that may have been a preview of what was to come. Moving on to Warren, she had a tough night as well, coming in third in her home state of Massachusetts. She hit 15% in at least Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, and Maine.

That's important because it means there are going to be some delegates there that she'll collect. Warren did not say that she was exiting the race and plans for now to push on. And drumroll, please. Gabbard earned her first delegate of the contest out of American Samoa. did not say that she was exiting the race and plans for now to push on and drum roll please gabbard earned her first delegate of the contest out of american smola oh so that means she's in the next debate well actually the the dnc kind of shot that down pretty quickly uh i don't know they're like no sorry yeah they just said they just said sort of uh alluding to what was going on that they might have different standards for the next debate. They haven't put out the standards, so we don't know.

OK, cool. OK, so Akilah, we went over what we know right now, but there are a lot of final results left to come in. What are we still waiting on? The biggies are California and Texas. So Texas was called for Biden, but we still need to see all of the results to understand how the delegates are going to be allocated. And California was called for Sanders.

But again, we're still waiting to see delegates and margins for him and everyone else. Those two states account for over 600 delegates. So that's almost half of the delegates given out on Super Tuesday. You know, no slouch. We have to wait and see what happens. But until we have all of that in, we won't be able to say who won overall

and, you know, where this delegate race is even standing. Yeah, it goes on and on. That's about it for now on Super Tuesday. We'll be back tomorrow with another episode with hopefully more results. Then the next two Tuesdays are super as well with big states like Michigan, Florida, Arizona, and Illinois voting. So for those of you who may have felt left out this week,

your turn to vote is coming. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Tennessee declared a state of emergency after deadly storms and tornadoes damaged over two thirds of the state. The death toll reached up to 24 people at the time of recording. Nashville experienced the worst of the damage with over 40,000 people left without power. The chaos struck overnight on Monday, hours before residents went out to vote on Super Tuesday. Several polling places had to relocate or push back their hours. For now, officials are telling residents to keep off roads and to stay away from the damaged buildings. The Federal Reserve slashed interest rates yesterday in a drastic attempt to curb the economic effects of the coronavirus. Interest rates were cut by half a percent, which is huge considering this was an unscheduled emergency decision.

The last time this happened was during the financial crisis of 2008. So it's safe to say policymakers are preparing for some turbulence. Stocks look good for about 15 minutes before plummeting to new lows. Economists say lowering the rates won't fix larger issues caused by the outbreak, such as travel and tourism industries coming to a halt and manufacturers freezing production. For now, they say a recession isn't likely unless the effects spread to industries unconnected to the virus. Let's hope they don't. Israel held general elections on Monday, the country's third election in the last year. Israelis love elections more than they love instant coffee, which is a lot.

They had enough oil to keep the polling place lit up for one day, and instead they lit it for many days. That's a Hanukkah joke, and I'm Jewish, and I can do it. Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition won 59 seats this time around, but that's still too short of the majority needed to form a majority government. What happens next could be decided by Avigdor Lieberman, who leads an unaligned ultra-nationalist party that could side with Netanyahu or his centrist rival Benny Gantz to put either person's party in charge. If Netanyahu takes it, he'll be the first ever indicted prime minister in Israeli history. Congratulations to you, sir. That could be an issue because Israeli law isn't clear about whether someone facing corruption charges

can legally form a government. The New York Knicks aren't just good at losing games. They're also good at losing diehard fans that are closely associated with their brand. That's something they proved on Monday when they had security block Oscar-winning filmmaker and known Knicks freak Spike Lee from entering their stadium, Madison Square Garden, through his usual employees-only entrance. Here's how Lee describes what happened. They wanted me to leave the garden, walk outside, and come back on 31st Street. And I said, I'm not doing that.

First of all, you scanned my ticket. You can't scan a ticket twice. Also, I know that once you leave a sporting arena event, you can't come back in. So I don't trust these guys. So I'm not going for the okey-doke. Wow. Worth noting, he's dressed head-to-toe in Nick's gear during this interview, which makes it a little bit more hilarious.

Anyway, this isn't the best way to treat someone who's spent millions of dollars to cheer for your bad basketball team over the years. Lee says he'll be back, but not until next season. And those are the headlines. One last thing before we go. Crooked has a brand new podcast all about sports. It's called Hall of Shame. And each week, Rachel Bonetta of Fox

Sports and comedy writer Rechna Frickbaum will break down some of the craziest scandals in sports history to get to the bottom of what went down, why these stories matter and how they're still relevant today. You can check out Hall of Shame's trailer and subscribe to the show now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, give us a friendship bracelet, and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just cool tattoos on a stranger's arm like me,

What A Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes. I'm Gideon Resnick. And we hope you have a super Wednesday. Every day is super when you're with us. Yeah. What a day is a product of Crooked Media.

It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tun is our assistant producer. Our head writer is John Milstein and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka.