Foreign Desk Report
NEW YORK: Former US Vice President Joe Biden took a major step toward clinching the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday with easy wins in primaries held in a string of states, including the night’s biggest prize: Florida.
Biden’s victories over Senator Bernie Sanders, a left-wing politician with a progressive agenda, effectively ended his rival’s hopes of a comeback.
The former vice president is now almost certain to be the Democratic Party’s nominee to face President Donald Trump, a Republican, in the November’s presidential election.
These were the first primaries to be held amid the heightened fear and restrictions triggered by the coronavirus. The Trump administration has recommended avoiding groups of more than 10 people, and turnout was down in Illinois on Tuesday. But extensive early voting helped lift turnout in Florida and Arizona, which also voted in Biden’s favour.
Biden, 77, defeated Sanders by nearly 40 percentage points in Florida and more than 20 percentage points in Illinois, expanding his nearly unbeatable advantage in the campaign to choose a challenger to the Republican Trump in the Nov. 3 election, before the race enters an extended hiatus with no voting scheduled for weeks.
Experts say that the easy Biden wins were a sign Democrats were ready to unite for the campaign against Trump, and could increase pressure on Sanders, 78, to end his presidential bid. Democrats have worried about a possible repeat of 2016, when they believe his long, bitter primary battle with Hillary Clinton played a role in her upset loss to Trump.
