Just how big did former Vice President Joe Biden win on Super Tuesday? If you’re looking at strictly delegates, he didn’t win by that much, but if you’re looking at Biden’s ground game versus Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) or former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, then the former vice president won by a lot.
Biden walked away with wins in states he didn’t even visit or set up campaign offices. Derek Thompson, a writer for The Atlantic pointed out Tuesday night that Biden won Minnesota even though he had “no staff on the ground” – not “a single permanent staff member on the ground.” Biden walked away with 38 delegates from the state (Sanders is taking 26 and Warren will take 10) even though Sanders had dedicated staff in the state and held several events ahead of Super Tuesday.
The situation was even more embarrassing for Bloomberg, who spent more than half a billion dollars on his presidential campaign to walk away with a grand total of 44 delegates. In Minnesota specifically, Thompson reported that Bloomberg spent $13 million on ads and received exactly zero delegates.
ABC: Joe Biden is on pace to win Minnesota despite **no staff on the ground** while Sanders had staff and several events while Bloomberg spend $13 million on ads in the state.
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Alex Sietz-Wald, NBC’s senior digital politics reporter, reported Tuesday night that Biden had just one field off in Virginia, yet as The Daily Wire reported, he was declared the winner of the Old Dominion immediately after polls closed. Sietz-Wald also pointed out that Biden was “outspent 7-to-1 by Sanders and almost 100-to-1 by Bloomberg in all super Tuesday States” and had barely campaigned in any of them.
One potential loser tonight is campaigns. Like, in general.
Joe Biden had ONE field office in Virginia. Was outspent 7-to-1 by Sanders and almost 100-to-1 by Bloomberg in all super Tuesday States. Had barely campaigned in any states. And yet...
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The situation did not go unnoticed by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who suggested Biden’s big win on Super Tuesday was a major comeback.
“Joe Biden had nothing. He had almost no ads. He had almost no ground game in any of these states. He was really strapped for cash,” Wallace said.
In the week before Super Tuesday, The New York Times published an article about Biden’s struggles in the 14 states holding primaries that night. The Times reported that Biden’s field office in East Los Angeles had “no sign of life” just a week before the California primary, while Sanders’ office was “humming with activity.” The chairman of the Democratic Party of Arkansas said Biden’s campaign was “the least organized” in the state. The Democratic Party chairman of Texas said he hadn’t “seen anything other than the events” Biden held in Texas.
The outlet also reported that Biden had just $7 million cash-on-hand heading into Super Tuesday – half of what Sanders had:
That financial disadvantage has ramifications both for television advertising and for staffing: Multiple North Carolina Democrats, for example, said they knew of only one Biden campaign staff member in the state. Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign, by comparison, said it had more than 125 staff members there. The Biden team said it had a staff “in the double digits” in North Carolina.
In California, Mr. Bloomberg has 24 offices and more than 300 staff members, while Mr. Sanders has 23 offices and just over 100 staff members, according to their campaigns. The Biden office in East Los Angeles is the only one in the state, and his campaign declined to say how many staff members it had on the ground.
The Times also reported that Biden didn’t run many ads in Super Tuesday states. Biden’s campaign failed to take off in early primary states. His win in South Carolina was a real turning point for the campaign. In the days before Super Tuesday, two of Biden’s challengers dropped out and endorsed him. A slew of big-name Democrat endorsements quickly followed.
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