50 Hours that Changed the 2020 Democratic Presidential Race

by Newt Gingrich: The 50 hours between the South Carolina Primary and the end of the Super Tuesday primaries will be studied for a long time.

Going into South Carolina, former Vice President Joe Biden was on the ropes. There was a question of whether he could survive the scale of defeat he was going to face on Super Tuesday.

Sen Bernie Sanders was clearly the front runner. The question was whether he could win enough delegates on Super Tuesday to be virtually unstoppable.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sens Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar all looked viable. It seemed possible that they could limp along, gathering delegates, and potentially create a brokered convention.

At the same time, there was tremendous speculation about the possible impact of Mike Bloomberg’s campaign advertising program – the largest in history.

When Biden won a landslide in South Carolina, he suddenly became the hot property.

Even though Biden did not have the money to buy ads like Bloomberg, the sheer volume of earned media coverage of his victory began to give him new momentum.

When Klobuchar announced she was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Biden, he got a boost. When she announced that she was actually going to Dallas to campaign with Biden, he got another boost.

Buttigieg was not as elegant and effective as Klobuchar. She put her withdrawal and endorsement of Biden into the same statement. Buttigieg first withdrew and then endorsed Biden. It was only one more positive story for Biden.

Then, Beto O’Rourke, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia (also the vice presidential nominee for Hillary Clinton in 2016), and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (one of the best fundraisers in the Democratic Party and a close ally of the Clintons) also chimed in with endorsements for Biden.

The two days of earned media coverage made it feel like a Biden bandwagon was beginning. (It was: In both reality and in the media.)

On Super Tuesday, the results were stunning.

Klobuchar’s endorsement helped Biden win Minnesota. The Kaine-McAuliffe endorsements helped Biden carry Virginia by a surprising margin.

The strong support of the African American community – first so visible in South Carolina – carried over to victories in Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and by a narrow margin in Texas.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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