Sanders drops out of race, paving way for Biden to face Trump

WASHINGTON • Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont dropped out of the Democratic presidential race yesterday, concluding a quest for the White House that began five years ago in relative obscurity but ultimately elevated him as a champion of the working class, a standard-bearer of American liberalism and the leader of a self-styled political revolution.

Mr Sanders' exit from the race establishes former vice-president Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee to challenge President Donald Trump, and leaves the progressive movement without a prominent voice in the 2020 race.

In a race reshaped and eclipsed by the escalating coronavirus crisis, Mr Sanders faced no realistic path to the nomination after a series of lopsided losses to Mr Biden, beginning in South Carolina in late February and culminating with a string of losses last month in crucial states like Michigan and Florida.

With the public health emergency preventing both candidates from holding in-person campaign events, Mr Sanders spent the past several weeks on the sidelines, delivering addresses via live stream and making occasional television appearances, while facing calls from fellow Democrats to exit the race and help unify the party behind Mr Biden.

Though Mr Biden had been careful not to pressure Mr Sanders, he had begun to move ahead as if the race were over, taking steps, for example, to begin his search for a running mate.

As Mr Sanders pursued the White House for a second time, he promised that he could transform the electorate, bringing new voters under the Democratic tent, but that goal eluded him.

Even Mr Sanders has lamented that he was unable to produce a surge in young voters.

In early primaries this year, he also failed to show that he had remedied a crucial weakness from his 2016 run: a lack of support from black voters, a vital base of the Democratic Party.

In state after state across the South - Alabama, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Virginia - he was unable to chip away at Mr Biden's strong support among African-Americans.

In many ways, Mr Sanders never overcame the widely held view among Democrats that he was a political outlier, a self-described democratic socialist who proudly proclaimed himself to be an independent senator rather than a member of the party establishment.

Mr Sanders championed and popularised liberal policies like "Medicare for All" and free four-year public colleges aimed at lifting America's working class, but he faced opposition from many party leaders, elected officials and major donors, as well as large numbers of moderate voters who saw him as too far left.

Mr Sanders never accepted that argument. In recent weeks, he said repeatedly that he had won the ideological debate, asserting that a strong majority of Democrats supported his progressive agenda.

But during a striking news conference in Burlington, Vermont, last month, he also acknowledged that he was losing the electability battle to Mr Biden, saying voters had made it clear that they thought the former vice-president was the best candidate to beat Mr Trump.

His departure from the race will amount to a striking turnaround for a candidate who, less than two months ago, was the clear front runner, after finishing in a tie for first in Iowa and winning in New Hampshire and Nevada.

And for a man who is loath to admit defeat, it is a concession that he saw no path to overcoming Mr Biden, and that he may have more leverage for his liberal policy agenda if he ceded the race and joined forces with his rival.

His exit is also a sharp contrast to his bid in 2016, when he stayed in an increasingly acrimonious race against Mrs Hillary Clinton even after it became clear she would be the eventual nominee.

NYTIMES