Joe Biden was hammered from multiple sides during the Super Tuesday primary election this week. He was hit with a double whammy that came from within his own party.
Biden now knows that his path to reelection is littered with more land mines than he expected. Not only did he witness the juggernaut opponent that is former President Donald Trump wipe out the last GOP challenger, but Biden’s eyes also were opened by his own party.
Biden, who has been protected in the primaries, lost to an unknown challenger on Super Tuesday. The incumbent was also hit with a dark horse element in his own party that won’t commit to him.
From ABC News:
In a surprising yet politically inconsequential upset on Super Tuesday, President Joe Biden lost the American Samoa Democratic caucuses to entrepreneur Jason Palmer.With 99% of the expected vote reporting, Palmer leads with 56% of the vote, followed by Biden with 44%. The results mark Biden’s first loss in the nominating race so far.
The loss is considered politically insignificant because less than 100 votes were cast, and Biden has racked up almost all delegates for his party. American Samoa, a U.S. territory and not a state, holds primary caucuses even though it doesn’t have any electoral votes for president.
What is significant is the message sent to Biden. Palmer said his small win sent Biden a message that he needs to hear, “That the American people want to pass the torch to the next generation.”
Biden also heard another message loud and clear from Democrats on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of party voters cast their ballots as “uncommitted” or “no preference” against Biden across Super Tuesday states, according to The Hill.
The trend started last week in Michigan where more than 100,000 Democrat primary voters, or 13.2 percent of the vote total, cast ballots for “uncommitted.” The trend spread throughout Super Tuesday states with multiple double-digit ballot percentages showing voters selected the non-committed vote over Biden.
Progressive activists pushed hard in a wave of urgency to garner more “uncommitted” protest votes against Biden. Fueling the surge against the president this election cycle is frustration among leftists regarding Biden’s policy around Israel and its war in Gaza against Hamas.
These primary uprisings against Biden have many Democrats worried about his viability as a candidate heading into an all-out battle against Trump this fall. Biden has faltered to get his message out to voters.
The Hill reported that Democrats are beginning to hit the panic button. An implosion in Trump’s campaign expected by leftists hasn’t happened and a series of polls suggests Biden is weaker than he was four years ago.
Many Democrats believed Trump’s legal problems would wipe out his candidacy, but he has prevailed on key legal fronts. These included a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision to stop efforts to toss him off ballots.
“All these indictments, all of these lawsuits and so on, have given him a chance to look indomitable, look strong, look resilient, and that’s actually in some ways helped,” said David Axelrod, a former senior political adviser to President Obama.
Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist and former adviser to the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said Democrats “should” be worried about how the political landscape is developing. This includes a loud alarm bell with the recent New York Times/Siena College poll that revealed Trump leading Biden 48 percent to 43 percent among registered voters nationwide.
Key Takeaways:
- An unknown challenger beat Biden in a primary tilt in a U.S. territory.
- Biden also lost large percentages of primary votes to “uncommitted.”
- The double whammy exposed Biden’s weaknesses as a candidate.
