Democrats running for president faced their biggest hurdle on Super Tuesday. With contests in 14 states, the results led candidates Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren to end their campaigns, while former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders emerged as the clear frontrunners.
Ahead of Arizona’s Democratic Presidential Preference Election in a few weeks, Arizona 360 got analysis on Tuesday’s big takeaways from the Yellow Sheet Report editor Hank Stephenson, Arizona Daily Star opinion writer Edward Celaya and KVOI 1030 AM’s Tipping Point host Zach Yentzer.
On what Super Tuesday indicates about which voter groups the candidates are attracting:
“Bernie Sanders got the majority of the youth vote. The youth vote is usually under 20% of the turnout,” Yentzer said. “That’s going to be the challenge moving forward.”
“I think it'll be a game of who turns out obviously. Whether Arizona's college students show up to vote. Whether Latinos show up to vote, if that happens maybe Bernie Sanders gives Joe Biden a race for his money,” Stephenson said. “But if it's kind of the older, whiter, moderate dem electorate, I think Arizona goes Joe Biden.”
On the value of endorsements and reaction to the Arizona Republic’s recent decision to forego endorsing candidates this year:
“I think it kind of falls into the argument against having editorials by saying, ‘Oh, number one, nobody really cares what we have to say,’ I don't think that's really true,” Celaya said. “I don't think that the necessary role of an endorsement is to influence people to vote for somebody. I think it's to influence the conversation around the election.”
On COVID-19 concerns and Arizona’s response:
“We’ve had two confirmed cases in Arizona. This is not, at this point, a huge outbreak. But I think everyone sees that if we’re not taking preventative measures, if we’re not smart about how we handle this, it could become a much bigger issue,” Stephenson said.
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