SELMA, Ala. _ A reinvigorated Joe Biden fought Sunday to turn the Democratic presidential race into a two-man contest against Bernie Sanders, but persistent rivals showed no signs of yielding to the leading contestants with a barrage of coast-to-coast balloting just 48 hours away.
Coming off a smashing victory in the South Carolina primary, the former vice president took a celebratory lap on the political talk show circuit, boasting of his best-ever fund-raising performance _ $5 million collected virtually overnight _ and sharpening his attacks on Vermont's senator.
"I think Bernie Sanders' position on a number of the issues, even in the Democratic Party, are going to be, are very controversial," Biden said on NBC's "Meet the Press," suggesting Sanders would have to substantially raise taxes to pay for generous programs such as Medicare for all and student debt forgiveness.
"We're getting down now, everybody's going to look at Bernie's record as closely as they've looked at mine over the last five months," Biden continued, "and I think they're going to see some stark differences in where we stand."
Sanders responded in kind, calling Biden a part of the political establishment that has long neglected those who struggle day-to-day to get by.
"In order to beat Trump, we are going to need the largest voter turnout in the history of this country," Sanders said on "This Week" on ABC. "And I don't think you can do that unless you have a message that appeals to the working class and the middle class in this country."
Former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who is competing for the first time on Tuesday after skipping the early contests, planned a big TV moment Sunday night with a presidential-like address to the nation on the threat posed by the coronavirus. The billionaire was spending several million on the 3-minute broadcast, adding to a campaign tab that has already topped more than $500 million.
There were signs of trouble, however, even before Bloomberg put his name before voters.
Nearly seven in 10 South Carolina voters had a negative view of the media mogul, according to exit poll interviews conducted by Edison Research, and on Sunday a small group of churchgoers stood up and silently turned their backs as Bloomberg spoke from the pulpit of the historic Brown Chapel AME Church.
Bloomberg, who has apologized for a controversial New York City police policy that targeted young black and brown men, showed no reaction as he stuck to remarks about racial inequality.
"In Alabama and across much of this country there's still millions of women and men who are being denied the right to vote simply because of the color of their skin," Bloomberg said before reciting the names of foot soldiers in the civil rights movement who were beaten and bloodied in Selma 55 years ago.
By contrast, Biden received a warm reception, many in the congregation standing and applauding as he approached the pulpit. He criticized President Trump for moving the country in the wrong direction.
"We've been dragged backward and we've lost ground," Biden said. "We've seen all too clearly that if you give hate any breathing room it comes back."
Biden's decisive win in South Carolina came as a relief to many more moderate Democrats who fear running with Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, atop the presidential ticket in November. Seeking to buttress his candidacy and reemergence in the campaign's top tier, Biden rolled out a number of endorsements Sunday, including the support of former Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln.
His strong performance was also reassuring to some black voters who watched as the former vice president stumbled through early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire; he promised to regain his equilibrium in South Carolina, where African Americans made up more than half the primary electorate.
"Joe Biden did what he said he was going to do," said Cookie Green, a homecare provider from Reston, Ala., as she left a morning prayer breakfast ahead of a day of commemoration ceremonies in Selma. "I am pulling for him 110% and hoping he goes to the White House. I don't want no politician on training wheels."
Alabama and Arkansas are two of 14 states, including California, that will vote on Tuesday _ Super Tuesday _ in the campaign's largest-single day of balloting. By the time polls close on the West Coast, roughly 40% of the delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination will have been allocated, though it may be some time before the exact apportionment is known.
Candidates winning as little as 15% support can walk away with a share of delegates and with so many targets of opportunity, and the prospect of leveraging those delegates in the event of a contested convention, no one was willing to follow Tom Steyer's lead and quit the contest ahead of Tuesday. (The San Francisco hedge-fund billionaire and political activist exited the race Saturday night after finishing a distant and disappointing third in South Carolina.)
Pete Buttiegieg, the former South Bend, Ind., mayor who won Iowa and finished a close second in New Hampshire, said on "Meet the Press," he has concluded "pushing forward is the best thing we can do for the country and for the party." His campaign issued a strategy memo saying Buttigieg hoped to cherry-pick delegates by winning in areas with a high concentration of the well-educated, white voters who have been his strongest supporters.
Similarly, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested she may fight on to the Democrat's nominating convention in July. Her campaign manager, Roger Lau, said in a post on Medium that he expected the field to narrow drastically after Super Tuesday and Warren to remain as one of the few viable candidates heading into a convention with no clear winner.
"Our grassroots campaign is built to compete in every state and territory and ultimately prevail at the national convention in Milwaukee," Lau wrote.
Massachusetts is another of the Super Tuesday states and polls suggest that Warren is in a close fight there against Sanders. Also voting Tuesday is Minnesota, the home state of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who, like Buttigieg and Warren, finished far out of contention in South Carolina.
On Sunday, Klobuchar sent a Tweet citing 13 newspapers "from coast to coast and north to south" that have endorsed her campaign, which appears to have stalled after a surprising third-place finish in the Feb. 11 New Hampshire primary.
She joined several other candidates as they marched Sunday afternoon with hundreds of others across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where the brutal police beating of peaceful demonstrators in 1965 sparked outrage and helped fuel the civil rights movement.
Barabak reported from Los Angeles and Jarvie from Selma, Ala.
