Klobuchar to drop campaign, endorse Biden

PHOTO: Lorie Schaull, Flickr CC

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will end her campaign for president tonight and endorse former Vice President Joe Biden at a rally in Texas. 

The unexpected news came less than a day before polls open in the Minnesota presidential primary and the broader Super Tuesday spate of nominating contests.

Klobuchar was expected to carry her home state, but recent polls had shown Sen. Bernie Sanders catching up to her. Last night, she cancelled a rally when it was interrupted by protesters.

Purely speculation here, but Klobuchar may have concluded that dropping out before losing Minnesota would save face. Or, like Pete Buttigeg who dropped out last night, she may have wanted to expedite the eventual consolidation of the “moderate” vote. Sanders will probably still lead the delegate count after Tuesday anyway, but this could limit his gains. 

I don’t know. I do know that about a third of the people who voted early probably regret that choice right now. This why you vote on election day unless you absolutely can’t be in your home precinct. 

Who’s left? Sanders, Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Your nominee is probably one of those first two, unless Warren breaks out tomorrow. 

The winner gets President Trump in the November general election.

Comments

  1. Steven Chesney says

    “This why you vote on election day unless you absolutely can’t be in your home precinct. ” I get it, but consider the value of Ranked Choice Voting for primaries. (I’m not an RCV enthusiast, just a guy who likes to vote early to get it out of the way.)

    • RCV would have taken care of this particular problem. You’d probably want to rethink delegate allocation in an RCV primary. I’m undecided about RCV overall. I like the idea of a binary choice in the end. I suppose RCV is one way to get there.

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