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Biden Looks to Grow Lead Over Sanders With More Primary Wins

Biden Looks to Grow Lead Over Sanders With More Primary Wins

(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden could take a big step closer to sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination with six primaries that could open wide leads over rival Bernie Sanders in delegates and support, especially in the key state of Michigan.

Biden, the former vice president, is expected to sweep most of the six states voting Tuesday. He leads Sanders by 15 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. He leads by 23 percentage points in Michigan, which offers one-third of the 352 delegates on the table.

The other states voting Tuesday are Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington State. Looming over the primaries is the coronavirus and the accompanying market plunge, the biggest since the 2008 financial crisis.

In Missouri, polling places were relocated from spots where older people gather, like assisted living facilities. In Washington State, officials urged voters not to lick the envelopes of their mail-in ballots and extra cleaning was under way at Michigan polling places.

A rising number of officials asked all three presidential candidates -- Biden, Sanders and President Donald Trump -- to stop holding large events. So far, that hasn’t happened, with both septuagenarian Democrats holding rallies on Monday, high-fiving supporters and shaking hands with officials on stage.

Michigan’s Big Prize

The candidates focused most of their attention on Michigan, which offers more delegates than Washington, Idaho and North Dakota combined.

Biden campaigned there on Tuesday, but his tour of a Fiat Chrysler plant in Detroit went off track when he told a voter he was “full of sh-t” after being challenged on gun rights.

An unnamed man confronted the former vice president at the event, saying Biden was “actively trying to end our Second Amendment right and take away our guns.”

Biden looked him in the eye and said, “You’re full of sh-t. I did not. No. No.”

“I support the Second Amendment,” Biden said. “I have a shotgun, I have a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge. My sons hunt, guess what? I’m not taking your gun away at all. You need 100 rounds?”

Sanders won Michigan in an upset over eventual nominee Hillary Clinton four years ago and needs a victory there to revive his candidacy. After losing 10 of the 14 states that voted on Super Tuesday, he has redirected much of his campaign’s focus to Biden’s votes for the North American Free Trade Agreement and for normalizing trade with China when he was a U.S. senator that 25 years ago turned into job losses for the industrial state.

Biden Looks to Grow Lead Over Sanders With More Primary Wins

“What these trade deals have done is decimate the working class of the country,” Sanders said Friday at a roundtable on the subject. “It’s not just the loss of jobs, it’s wages going down, it’s a race to the bottom.”

Those losses have stabilized. Wage growth is up a little more than 2% in Michigan, and manufacturing saw a drop of less than 1% in 2019.

Sanders campaigned in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor on Sunday. In his corner was the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate who had his own surprise victory in Michigan before losing the nomination to Michael Dukakis.

The candidates’ crisscrossing paths underscored the state’s importance — both for the nomination and in November. The 10th largest state by population, it was one of the previously Democratic-leaning manufacturing centers that Trump won in 2016.

Half of Michigan voters in 2016 said that international trade costs the U.S. jobs, and they voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by 22 points, according to exit polls.

Harris, Booker Endorse Biden

Biden focused on rallying black voters, who he needs not only in Michigan but in Missouri and Mississippi as well. But he also managed expectations, pointing noting that Clinton polled ahead in Michigan before Sanders squeaked out a narrow victory there in 2016.

On Sunday he spoke at a black church in Mississippi and ate macaroni and cheese at a soul food buffet. He also captured the endorsements of two major black candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination – Kamala Harris and Cory Booker – as well as another, Deval Patrick, in another sign of the consolidation of much of the Democratic Party behind him.

“He will never look down on us. He will lift us up,” Booker told black voters, as he announced his support for Biden on Monday in Flint.

Delegate Math

As of Monday, Biden led Sanders by 91 delegates, with California, Colorado and Utah still counting votes from Super Tuesday. With all other major contenders out of the race, the 2020 field has narrowed to the two men plus Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard, who is still campaigning from far behind.

While battling for Michigan, Sanders is hoping for strong performances in western states where he has done well this year and hopes to pick up delegates in Idaho, North Dakota and Washington. He won those states in 2016.

Biden is leading comfortably in Mississippi and Missouri, two states with large concentrations of African-American voters who were key to vaulting him to victory in South Carolina and in Super Tuesday states.

Next week the race turns to four states awarding 577 delegates of the 1,991 needed to clinch the nomination. A Sanders win in Michigan could enhance his chances in the Midwestern states of Illinois and Ohio. Biden is leading in recent polling in Arizona and Florida.

(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, also sought the Democratic presidential nomination. He endorsed Joe Biden on March 4.)

To contact the reporters on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Detroit, Michigan at tpager1@bloomberg.net;Jennifer Epstein in Flint, Michigan at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane, John Harney

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