Democratic Party primaries have come to their finale prematurely, after the last rival of frontrunner Joe Biden, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, announced the suspension of his campaign in a dramatic move on 8 April. Despite showing promising results on the early stages of the primaries race, Biden never overcame Biden's breakthrough on Super Tuesday.
However, his failure to win the nomination, as well as the timing to pull out of the race, was not surprising, David Schultz, Professor at the Department of Political Science and Department of Legal Studies of Hamline University says. He stresses that Sanders has always stood out with his political platform and at the same time failed to transform the Democratic Party with his followers to gain support.
"[Sanders] was too liberal for the party and his label democratic socialist scared off mainstream Party leaders who feared he would be a political disaster for the Democrats. This is the reason why they got behind Biden", Schultz suggests.
Sander's chances at winning the nomination were always doubtful, as he was essentially a "progressive running against the ideology of the centre of the party", the pundit said. The Vermont Senator's candidacy was "ultimately done" from the start just as it would be the case with any "honest insurgent candidate" in American politics, Mark Dankof, a US investigative journalist agrees. He indicates that Sanders was an inconvenient candidate for several groups of interests, such as globalists and Israel supporters, who purportedly used their money, as well as the help from "corporate mainstream media" to make sure he never wins.
The Senator's campaign might have stood a chance if not for the "cancerous [Democratic] Party and the American political process", the journalist opines, adding that Sanders is an "outstanding stump speaker", who could communicate with people akin to such famous US presidents as John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. The Democratic Party showed itself not from the best side by denying Sanders a shot at presidency twice, choosing Joe Biden instead, Dankof notes.
"Whether one likes him or not ideologically, I perceive him as actually committed to the policies he proclaims and has fought for. The apparent actual nominee of the Democratic Party, Mr. Biden, is someone I believe to be corrupt, malleable, and willing to sell himself to the powers that be in the American political elite", he says.
Coronavirus Pandemic' Influence
Commenting on the time of Sanders' announcement, analysts suggested that it might have been influenced by the ongoing coronavirus outbreak in the country. The COVID-19 crisis only worsened the senator's situation after losses in Super Tuesday and amid troubles with fundraising, rendering him "invisible" to the public, professor David Schultz suggests.
The pandemic could have also damaged the campaign of his rival, Joe Biden, thus forcing the Democratic Party to act, Paul Taylor, a political analyst from the US, says, pushing the idea that the party's establishment played the key role in Sanders' decision to end the campaign.
"The timing coincides with the virus causing them to lose steam with their push for Biden. I can assure you that a deal for Bernie has been tendered but his career to run in the future is finished", Taylor believes.
The influence of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has resulted in over 422,000 cases of infection and at least 14,257 deaths, according to the the most recent CDC data on 8 April, on the 2020 presidential campaigns and specifically Democratic primaries could not be missed with several states delaying their voting amid quarantines. Additionally, the party announced that the Convention, where the candidate for the presidential election was supposed to be determined, will be moved from July to August as a result of the raging pandemic.