HOUSTON — Joe Biden may have accidentally called it “Super Thursday” before correcting himself, but it’s clear he’s confident heading into the biggest day of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday.
“I warned I was coming back, and now I’m back,” Biden, 77, said in Houston.
The two-term vice president added, “You know, just a few days ago, the pundits declared my campaign dead. Then, along came South Carolina. Tomorrow, Texas is going to speak.”
Biden has exuded a newfound confidence on the campaign trail since trouncing the once-crowded field by almost 30 percentage points in South Carolina over the weekend. After the first-in-the-South contest, three candidates, Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and then Amy Klobuchar, dropped out of the race before Super Tuesday, when 14 states and one U.S. territory will weigh in on the primary.
He took the stage in Texas Southern University’s crowded Science Center on Monday, moments after both Buttigieg and Klobuchar announced they would endorse him, reportedly planning to attend a rally with him in Dallas on Monday evening. The pair’s support follows a deluge of endorsements throughout the day, including from former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada as center-left Democrats coalesce behind Delaware’s 36-year senator hoping to stop the prospect of Bernie Sanders seizing the party’s nomination. However, Biden didn’t mention them during his 20-minute-or-so address.
Instead, Biden in Houston reprised some of his favorite attacks against the socialist Vermont senator, including that Democrats wanted a Democrat at the top of the ticket and that “talk of revolution isn’t changing anyone’s lives.”
“The moment to choose a path forward has arrived for our party, maybe sooner than people had anticipated … but it’s here,” he said.
Former President Barack Obama’s No. 2 also touted his appeal to a broad swath of Democrats.
“I stand here today because of minority communities. I am very much alive because of it,” he told the diverse audience.
