HOUSTON: Joe Biden’s presidential hopes received a huge shot in the arm Monday after former rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the Democratic race and endorsed the former vice president ahead of the crucial Super Tuesday primaries.
The dramatic turn comes at one of the pivotal points in a fractured, often bitter campaign, with the Democratic establishment desperate to coalesce around a moderate candidate who can fight off the surging leftist frontrunner Bernie Sanders.
As the five remaining candidates in the race made their final pitch to voters in 14 states, Biden has capitalized on the momentum he seized at the weekend with a blowout victory over Sanders in South Carolina.
The 77-year-old Biden is consolidating support among moderates eager to blunt the advance of Sanders, who could take a potentially insurmountable lead in the all-important delegate count after Super Tuesday.
Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana ran a historic campaign as the first openly gay major presidential candidate.
Speaking in Dallas one day before residents of delegate-rich Texas and 13 other states cast their ballots, Buttigieg said he was “delighted” to endorse Biden in part because he embraces the politics of “decency.”
“I’m looking for a president who will draw out what is best in each of us, and I’m encouraging everybody who was part of my campaign to join me because we have found that leader in vice president, soon-to-be-president, Joe Biden,” Buttigieg said in Dallas, with Biden standing nearby.
It was just one of several endorsements Biden earned on a busy day.
Klobuchar dropped out Monday and her team said she will endorse the 77-year-old and join him onstage in Dallas.
Democrat Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader said his onetime Senate colleague Biden represents “the starkest contrast to Trump’s amorality, corruption and utter incompetence.”
Another former presidential candidate, Beto O’Rourke, reportedly will also be on stage with Biden in Dallas.
“Most Americans don’t want a promise of a revolution, they want a guarantee of results on the things that affect them,” Biden told a rally in Houston in a swipe at Sanders, who advocates a “political revolution” against the status quo.
“We need real results and we need them now. I’ve done that my whole career, and I’ll do it as president.”
The departures and endorsements of Klobuchar and Buttigieg are gold for a resurgent Biden.
His campaign was on life support after disappointing showings in the first three state contests, but he is suddenly the main challenger to Sanders on the biggest day of the primary campaign.
New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who on Tuesday competes in his first primaries, has also been spreading his message to voters in a lavish multi-state ad blitz, but Super Tuesday will be his first official day on the ballot.
Sanders — flush with money for ads, an extensive organization, and momentum in the polls — has focused on multiple states including delegate-rich California, Tuesday’s biggest prize.
“It is no secret... that there is a massive effort trying to stop Bernie Sanders,” the frontrunner said about himself during a press conference in Utah.
“The corporate establishment is coming together, the political establishment is coming together,” Sanders added. “They are really getting nervous that working people are standing up.”
Sanders, whose ascent as a self-described democratic socialist has disconcerted Democratic grandees, is leading Biden nationally in polling, with Bloomberg in third place.
Buttigieg had strong showings in predominantly white early voting states but was unable to draw black and Hispanic support after that.
The campaign of pragmatist Klobuchar never gained traction. By endorsing Biden, she could deprive Sanders of a large delegate claim in her state of Minnesota, which votes Tuesday.
Klobuchar’s endorsement “will bring more votes to Joe Biden,” Myliesha Smiley, a 23-year-old student at Biden’s Houston event, told AFP.
Biden’s fortunes were resurrected in South Carolina, where African-Americans turned out in force to give him a crushing 48 percent to 20 percent victory over Sanders.
“Super Tuesday is about momentum, and we’ve got it,” Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, told CNN.
The win has earned Biden badly needed campaign funding — $10 million raised on Saturday and Sunday alone.
The former number two to Barack Obama says his strength with blacks, Hispanics, women and suburbanites will show in the coming contests.
Though Klobuchar was joining Biden’s camp, Sanders weighed in to appeal to her voters.
“I hope her supporters will join us in our fight to defeat Donald Trump in November and win real change,” Sanders tweeted.
Also courting moderate and independent voters is Bloomberg, who campaigned in Virginia on Super Tuesday eve.
“I’ve won three elections so far, I don’t plan to start losing now,” Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg has spent an unprecedented $500 million of his own fortune saturating the airwaves with TV spots.
Resurgent Biden earns Klobuchar, Buttigieg backing before Super Tuesday
https://arab.news/2usby
Resurgent Biden earns Klobuchar, Buttigieg backing before Super Tuesday
- The 77-year-old Biden is consolidating support among moderates eager to blunt the advance of Sanders
- Klobuchar dropped out Monday and her team said she will endorse the former vice president and join him onstage in Dallas
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
