By Virgil Parker, Staff Reporter
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia
Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed to stay in the presidential race following his unsatisfying Mini-Tuesday performance last week. Former Vice President Joe Biden won four of the six states and accumulated 184 additional delegates in the March 10 primaries. The senator gained 112. Nevertheless, Sanders says that he is looking forward to debating the former vice president.
The hashtag #JoeMentum has become popular after Biden’s strong performance on Super Tuesday. Biden won 10 of the 14 states during the March 3 contests and kept that same momentum in primaries last week. Sanders received a devastating blow in losing the state of Michigan, among others. Out of 125 delegates, Michigan pledged 72 to Biden. Consequently, the former vice president maintained his delegate lead.
Kyle McMurtry, a senior political science major from Detroit, provided his thoughts about last week’s primary. “Although only by a slim margin, Bernie won Michigan against Hillary in 2016 so I hoped he’d at least do well enough to beat Biden — a candidate whose incompetence is transparent and political history is atrocious,” said McMurtry.
According to The New York Times, Biden had 890 delegates, and Sanders had 736 as of March 14. McMurtry said, “It’s disappointing that older voters, the only real base Biden has, are condemning us younger generations to a world increasingly worsened by environmental, health and financial catastrophes.”
One of the six states – Washington – had yet to declare a winner as of March 14. However, the senator was trailing Biden by about 2 percentage points there as well, according to the Seattle Times. With 89 delegates, Washington had the second-largest delegate count of the evening.
“Mini Tuesday is a crushing blow to the Sanders campaign and other progressive candidates that thought that the county was finally ready for them,” said Brandon Henry. Henry is from Atlanta and majors in political science at Howard University.
According to Politico, Biden and Sanders canceled their campaign rallies in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Both campaigns had events scheduled in Cleveland. With over 1,000 COVID-19 cases and 36 deaths reported in the U.S., the World Health Organization declared the disease a pandemic. Both candidates delivered remarks Thursday regarding COVID-19.
When asked her reaction about last week’s primary results, Howard University student Oona Nelson said, “Not surprised, it’s what I expected. To get Trump out of office, I believe Biden is the way to go.” Nelson is a junior international business major with a concentration in emerging nations from Piscataway, New Jersey.
Biden and Sanders are scheduled to debate Sunday, March 15, in Phoenix. The debate will be held without a live audience.
