President Joe Biden is easily picking up wins in the Super Tuesday primary states over rivals, Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help guru Marianne Williamson.
The president notched early wins in the Iowa caucuses and then in primaries held in Virginia, North Carolina, Vermont, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Maine, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Colorado.
Results from three more states are expected before the end of the night.
A more serious challenge to Biden has been Democrats choosing to vote ‘uncommitted,’ a protest vote over Biden’s support of Israel while the death toll in Gaza mounts.
There was some support for ‘uncommitted’ in certain Super Tuesday states, with early returns showing just around 12 percent of Democrats in Massachusetts voting that way and around 10 percent of North Carolinians too.
President Joe Biden was expected to mop up more delegates on Super Tuesday. He was heaviliy favored in the Iowa caucuses over lesser-known opponents.
One of Biden’s challengers, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, jokingly posted to X how everyone else running demonstrated ‘more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me’ Phillips, who launched a challenge in October due to Biden’s advanced age and opinion polls showing him losing to former President Donald Trump, was candid about voters rejecting his bid.
‘Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,’ he posted on X Tuesday night.
Of the Super Tuesday states Biden won, North Carolina has the biggest delegate haul – with 116 – and has been a state Democrats have wanted back in the fold after former President Donald Trump won it in both 2016 and 2020 and Republican Mitt Romney won it in 2012.
Virginia is worth 99 delegates and is a state Biden won by 10 points over Trump in 2020 and a state he needs to keep in his column.
Vermont and Massachusetts are solidly blue and worth just 16 and 92 delegates, while Tennessee and Oklahoma are traditionally red and worth 63 and 36 delegates, respectively.
And Biden won the support of more than 11,000 Iowa Democrats in unofficial returns posted on the Hawkeye State party’s website Tuesday evening.
The president was running way ahead of his two challengers, Phillips and Williamson, who reentered the race last week after dropping out last month due to performing better in Michigan than Phillips.
Iowa traditionally held the first contest for both the Democrats and Republican, but the Democratic National Committee stripped it of that status this year after the fiasco during the 2020 count.
South Carolina now has the coveted first-in-the-nation status for Democratic voters.
Biden beat back low polling candidates Rep. Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson, In a video message to supporters Wednesday morning, Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson said she was back in the 2024 White House race.
The DNC’s move ended the tradition of fierce campaigning and sign-wielding volunteers and supporters packing Hawkeye State arenas through the winter in a contest with outsized national stakes.
This year, the caucus was conducted entirely by mail, with the results announced on a party website with almost no fanfare.
The showing would give Biden all of the state’s 14 delegates. The mail ballot was intended as a way to let Iowans with work or family conflicts participate.
Iowans could fill out preference cards for the president, Phillips, Williamson or uncommitted, which has success in Michigan last Tuesday, with around 100,000 Democrats choosing that option.
Biden’s easy wins come on a night where his rival former President Donald Trump won’t clinch the Republican nomination but could come close.
