Joe Biden has shifted his stance on whether Wisconsin should have plowed ahead with its primary.
“My gut is we shouldn’t have had the in-person election in the first place,” the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee told CNN late Tuesday. “It should have been all mail-in ballots.”
Biden, the former two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator, was criticized before Democrats in Wisconsin went to the polls Tuesday for equivocating on whether the primary should be held, as well as the state’s other spring general elections, including for a state Supreme Court seat.
Biden, 77, repeatedly said the decision should be left to local lawmakers and public health officials. In contrast, Bernie Sanders, Biden’s last remaining rival to become his party’s standard-bearer, was vocal in his opinion that the contests should be delayed, early voting extended, and greater provisions made for residents to vote-by-mail.
Biden’s campaign for the White House is boosted by states proceeding with primaries, inching him closer to the 1,991 pledged delegate threshold to earn the Democratic nod outright. So far, he has 1,196 delegates to Sanders’s 883.
The former vice president on Tuesday night seemed confident he prevailed in Wisconsin. He went into the election with an average lead of 28 percentage points on Sanders, the Vermont senator, according to RealClearPolitics.
“I think I have done well, but who knows?” Biden said.
Although he suggested Wisconsin shouldn’t have gone ahead with its races, Biden was adamant November’s general election could not be pushed back — a concern among many Democrats that cannot happen because Election Day is set in federal law.
“No, it shouldn’t creep into your mind,” he said. “We had elections in every major crisis. We can take care of our health and our democracy. The idea of postponing an election should not happen. It is not possible.”
Biden also dished on his phone call this week with President Trump about the coronavirus pandemic, describing it as a “good conversation” and the president as “very gracious.” He said he tried to stress to Trump the importance of responsibility and being a commander in chief amid the COVID-19 outbreak, adding the crisis was the “biggest challenge in modern history.”
“I think it may not dwarf but eclipse what FDR faced,” he said.
The Wisconsin primary and the state’s spring elections were cloaked in uncertainty, with the Republican-controlled legislature and the federal Supreme Court stepping in to stop Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s last-ditch effort to increase voter access while allowing residents to practice social distancing, as recommended by public health officials.
The debacle was slammed by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez in a statement on Tuesday as images of long lines were shared on social media and by news outlets.
“This was a dark day for our democracy. In the middle of one of the worst public health emergencies in modern history, the Republican Party forced the people of Wisconsin to choose between their safety and their vote. The craven self-interest of the GOP knows no bounds. They suppressed people’s voices and put lives in danger — all in service of their own partisan ambition,” Perez wrote.
Republicans claim Evers’s proposals opened up the state to potential voter fraud. The Supreme Court ruled in a 4-2 decision that the governor didn’t have the authority to delay the contests.
