Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden increase attacks as head-to-head race takes shape

DEARBORN, Mich. —  The Democratic presidential primary is down to two major candidates, and it shows.

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are spending their first weekend as their party’s last top White House contenders increasingly taking aim at each other. Each wants to show he’s the best choice before six more states — Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington — vote Tuesday.

It reflects the new contours of a race that once featured 20-plus Democrats. An increasingly bitter matchup could endure for months as Biden and Sanders compete for the right to face President Trump in November.

“We have a two-person race,” Sanders said Saturday in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with one of the nation’s largest Arab American populations. “And all over this country, people are asking themselves which candidate can best defeat Trump. I have zero doubt in my mind that, together, we are the campaign that can beat Trump.”

Campaigning in St. Louis, Biden took a number of veiled swipes at Sanders, even as he called on Democrats to rise above Trump’s division.

Politics

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders will probably face just each other at the March Democratic debate

The Democratic National Committee raised the requirements for the March 15 presidential debate in Arizona.

March 6, 2020

He told the crowd that if they wanted to nominate a “lifelong” and “proud” Democrat, they should pick him. As a senator Sanders runs for office as an independent, and he identifies himself as a democratic socialist.

“If you want a nominee who’ll bring the party together, who will run on a positive progressive vision for the future, not turn this primary into a campaign of negative attacks — because that will only reelect Donald Trump if we go that route — if you want that, join us,” Biden said.

Winning, he added, “means uniting America, not sowing more division and anger.”

The former vice president also gently knocked Sanders’ weeks of suggestions that he is the candidate who can prompt record voter turnout in November and defeat Trump, saying that, actually, “we’re the campaign that’s going to do that.”

Sanders is clearer in drawing contrasts, arguing that no Democrat will win the presidency “with the same-old, same-old politics of yesteryear.”

And in a sign of how biting the contest may become, Sanders supporters — including his campaign manager — raised questions about Biden’s stamina after he gave a seven-minute speech in St. Louis. At his second stop, in Kansas City, Biden again gave a truncated version of his stump speech, speaking for a little over 15 minutes.

Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir issued a statement on Twitter noting Biden’s short speaking time and highlighting the fact that Sanders had three campaign events on his schedule, “each speaking engagement extending for close to an hour.”

But the focus on Biden’s age is somewhat ironic given that, at 78, Sanders is a year older. Sanders, who has served in Congress since 1991, says he’s bucked the establishment of both parties for decades with unpopular stands that now give him the credibility to lead a political revolution “from the bottom up.”

Campaigning in St. Louis, Biden said he was the one to unite the party and the country, and he would do that by promoting an upbeat message.

Sanders is pledging to increase Democratic turnout by drawing younger voters, minorities and working-class people to the polls even though they tend to vote in lower concentrations than many other Americans. Strong support among Latinos lifted Sanders to victories in Nevada and California, but Biden trounced him in South Carolina and throughout much of the Deep South that voted on Super Tuesday. Biden especially ran up the score with African Americans.

Some activists are disappointed that a once-diverse field of women and minorities has dwindled to two white men in their late 70s. But in Dearborn, Sanders, who is Jewish, said he was inspired by so many Arab Americans backing him. “I see people coming together from so many different backgrounds. It is beautiful,” he said. He also joked about his age, saying, “Sometimes people say, ‘Bernie, you’re 33 years of age. How do you keep going?’”

Top advisors expect Sanders to finish strong in Washington. Still, he canceled a trip to Mississippi to focus on Michigan, Tuesday’s largest prize. He made a stop in Chicago’s Grant Park on Saturday afternoon — Illinois votes later this month — and declared that he has a different vision than Biden, “and the American people are going to hear about it.”

Sanders will spend the rest of the weekend in Michigan, while Biden is in Missouri and Mississippi.

Sanders said repeatedly that he and Biden are friends and that, if he’s not the nominee, he will support Biden against Trump. But, he added, “in the remaining months, I intend to make it clear what my views are and what Joe Biden’s are.”

Sanders has used many of his Michigan events to hammer Biden’s past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, arguing that it moved high-paying U.S. jobs to Mexico and China while devastating manufacturing in a state dominated by the auto industry. He’s focused on Biden’s years in the Senate, when Biden backed not only trade agreements and the U.S.-led war in Iraq, but also a ban on using federal funds to pay for abortions. Biden announced last summer that he was reversing his position on the latter issue, but Sanders said that wasn’t enough.

“I think we need a candidate that can be trusted on this issue. I am proud to tell you that I am 100% pro-choice,” Sanders said Friday night in Detroit.

The pair are also circling each other on the airwaves.

Biden saw a surge of donor support after South Carolina and Super Tuesday, and his campaign announced that it was spending $12 million on a six-state ad buy in places voting Tuesday and the following week. It was his largest single advertising effort of the 2020 campaign.

He is using two television and digital ads, one promoting his relationship with President Obama, the other a new effort to counter a Sanders attack on Biden’s past record on Social Security. It’s a criticism Sanders has used for months. And though he hasn’t mentioned it as frequently while campaigning in Michigan, he has released his own ad airing in states voting Tuesday and the following week criticizing Biden on Social Security.

It features an old clip of Biden saying, “When I argued if we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security.” Biden’s counter spot has a narrator saying, “Biden will increase Social Security benefits and protect it for generations to come.”