With Joe Biden mostly laying claim as its presumptive nominee, Democrats are seeking to unite ahead of its national convention with one focus in mind: Beat Donald Trump.
Avoiding a catastrophic fracturing of the party as the primary enters its most contentious phase is critical for Democrats, Andrew Gawthorpe, a lecturer in history and international studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands wrote in an op-ed for The Guardian.
“Measured, thoughtful actions from [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders and his supporters in their time of disappointment will speak volumes about their character, enhance their chances of ultimately winning the primary, and keep the party competitive against Trump regardless of what happens,” Gawthorpe noted. “Scorching the earth will do the opposite. The party and the country are watching nervously to see what they do next.
Following primary victories in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, Biden now has 315 more delegates than Sanders, 1,132 to 817, according to an NBC News count.
The former vice president has passed the halfway mark and is well on his way to the 1,991 delegates he needs to win a majority of all delegates and capture the Democratic presidential nomination.
A Sanders spokesperson said the Vermont Senator would “reassess” his campaign over the next couple of weeks.
With Georgia, Puerto Rico and Louisiana all canceling or postponing their primaries, the next contest isn’t until April 4, when Hawaii, Alaska and Wyoming all are scheduled to vote.
“Democrats are likely to be united in the fall, and President Donald Trump’s standing is stuck where it has been for many months,” opined Roll Call political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. “There are also more questions about presidential leadership and the economy, which the president has been relying on to help him win a second term.
“The president is an underdog now in his bid for a second term,” Rothenberg wrote. “That doesn’t mean he can’t win. It simply means that he is in a more difficult place than he was before, in part because Democrats have united behind a consensus candidate who has potentially broad appeal.”
The current health emergency has showcased Trump’s defects as a leader, wrote the editorial board at the Financial Times, adding that Trump’s “egotism and his inability to face facts have been on full display.”
“Confronted with a global crisis on this scale, the world would normally look to the White House for a lead. Trump has singularly failed to rise to the challenge,” the board said.
Political pundits and the candidates themselves also understand that the Black vote remains crucial.
“You cannot win without it,” Biden said in an earlier interview.
He also noted how critical it is for Democrats to unite.
“How and when Sanders concedes defeat to Biden will be critical,” the Financial Times editors wrote. “For the Democrats to beat Trump in November, Sanders needs to endorse his middle-ground adversary in magnanimous fashion. His ‘Bernie Bros’ must also be urged to support the Democratic nominee, rather than abstain.”