Super Tuesday: How Joe Biden become the comeback kid

Can it really be a case of third time lucky for the man from Scranton, asks Andrew Buncombe

Can Joe Biden make it all the way on his third run for the White House (Getty)

Call it the luck of the Irish. Or else call it political consolidation. Or else call it the fact that lots of people in the Democratic establishment appear terrified at the prospect of Bernie Sanders being the party’s presidential nominee.

On Super Tuesday, that much-storied landmark in America’s political calendar, all of those things appeared to combine to further winnow the field and set up a blockbuster finish.

Having been written off as old and out of touch, and with his campaign asking itself how much longer it could continue after dismal results in Iowa and New Hampshire, Joe Biden is back in the game in a major way.

After a barnstorming victory in South Carolina over the weekend, a state he long considered his firewall, the 77-year-old looked set to win delegates from across the nation on Tuesday, and perhaps bag as many as eight states.

In doing so he set himself for a likely showdown with Sanders, one year older than him, who also had a good night, particularly in the delegate-heavy states of Texas and California.

“Its a good night and it seems to be getting better,” a smiling, energised Biden told supporters in Los Angeles. “They call it Super Tuesday for a reason.”

Firstly credit where credit is due. Having gone from frontrunner to has-been over the course of two months of campaigning, Biden stuck at things when some may have been tempted to drop out. Attribute this to his hunger for the job, or attribute it to something else, but the former vice president never gave up.

But Biden’s fortunes are not all of his own making.

After Sanders won three straight victories in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and appeared on course to assume a perhaps unassailable frontrunner status, so those who believe a 78-year-old democratic socialist cannot beat Trump got busy.

Attack ads against Sanders were stepped up, some of them funded by mysterious “dark money” political action committees.

And then Biden won in South Carolina, something seemingly helped by the endorsement of Jim Clyburn. Biden had always been expected to win the state, but his margin of victory – almost 30 points clear of Sanders – cracked like a rifle.

“I was proud to be endorsed by Jim Clyburn, man, he is something else,” Biden said on Tuesday. “Our campaign reflects the diversity of this party and this nation, because we need to bring everybody along. We want a nominee who will keep Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the House and win back the United States Senate.”

After Biden won South Carolina people started to look at him again as a viable contender. And with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, seeing no way forward after their own poor showings in South Carolina. Amid mounting pressure to get out of the race and consolidate the non-Sanders supporters, the two midwesterners did just that. Klobuchar’s endorsement in particular, appears to have played a major part in helping Biden secure Klobuchar’s home state of Minnesota.

And Michael Bloomberg? So much noise and fuss was made about the former New York mayor and his $500m self-funded campaign, some pundits believed it was going to be his night. It was anything but. The only territory he managed to win was American Samoa. Already on Tuesday night there was talk about him dropping out.

For once Donald Trump’s words were not that far wrong.

“The biggest loser tonight, by far, is Mini Mike Bloomberg. His 'political' consultants took him for a ride,” he wrote.

“$700 million washed down the drain, and he got nothing for it but the nickname Mini Mike, and the complete destruction of his reputation. Way to go Mike!”

If Super Tuesday suggest the Democrats are set for race between two septuagenarians and that a third, Bloomberg, there are tough questions for the 70-year-old Elizabeth Warren. This was likely her campaign’s last chance to make a stand; as it was she failed to even win Massachusetts.