Democratic presidential hopeful former US vice president Joe Biden, surging in the polls and with several weighty endorsements in his pocket, and rival US Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday hit the campaign trail in Michigan on the eve of a primary vote in the key battleground state.
Biden, 77, was joined at an event in Flint, Michigan, by US Senator Cory Booker just hours after the one-time US presidential hopeful announced that he was throwing his support behind Biden.
“This could be the turning point not just of a primary campaign,” Booker said. “This could be the day we turned a whole nation around.”
Photo: AFP
Michigan is the biggest prize of six states that were to hold primaries on Tuesday to decide on a Democratic candidate to face Republican incumbent US President Donald Trump in November’s US presidential election.
Speaking at the event with Booker in Flint, Biden said that Michigan “is an important contest not just for the Democratic primary. The outcome of Michigan in November may determine who the next president of the United States is going to be.”
“We’re not looking for a revolution,” Biden said in a jab at Sanders, the 78-year-old senator who is a self-described democratic socialist.
Photo: AFP
“What we ought to be able to do is trust the water that comes out of the pipes,” Biden said in a reference to a drinking water pollution crisis gripping Flint for the past six years.
On Monday, Sanders was campaigning in Detroit, Michigan, where he held a roundtable with experts on COVID-19, criticizing Trump’s handling of the virus crisis.
“Donald Trump does not have a natural ability to understand the coronavirus, and his reckless statements are confusing people in this country and all over the world,” Sanders said.
Booker, the charismatic former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who dropped out of the race in January, is the latest prominent African-American politician to back Biden’s bid for the White House, his third, following unsuccessful runs in 1988 and 2008.
US Senator Kamala Harris, who ended her campaign for the nomination in December last year, also endorsed Biden.
Booker and Harris, both touted as possible vice presidential picks for Biden, joined him for a “Get Out the Vote” rally in Detroit on Monday evening.
Biden has surged since scoring a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29, with endorsements from key African-American leaders helping him claim the frontrunner mantle in the race.
Former Democratic candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg and Beto O’Rourke have also swung behind Biden, seeing a moderate as having the best chance of defeating Trump.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, who last week dropped out of the race and has a sizeable following on the left, has yet to decide whether to endorse Biden or Sanders.
Tuesday’s primaries were to be the first one-on-one duel between Biden and Sanders since all of the other major candidates dropped out of the grueling nomination battle that began more than a year ago.
Besides Michigan, Democrats were also to vote in Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington.
Michigan is shaping up as a must win for Sanders, who narrowly won the state over former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton during his failed 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination.
However, the latest polls for Michigan have Biden with a lead of 15 to 20 points.
The latest Missouri poll has Biden up there by nearly 19 points, while he leads Sanders by a narrow two-point margin in Washington.
Sanders, desperate to reboot his campaign after losing 10 of the 14 states that voted on Super Tuesday last week, canceled plans to speak in Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois so that he could focus on Michigan.
Sanders on Sunday gained the endorsement of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Jackson said he was repaying Sanders for having supported his 1988 bid for the White House.
“I stand with Bernie Sanders today because he stood with me,” Jackson said. “I stand with him because he stands with you.”
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