Joe Biden has won Minnesota, according to multiple outlets.
This is a tremendous and unexpected win: First, because Bernie Sanders won the state in 2016 and was projected to win after Amy Klobuchar dropped out. Second, because Biden did not have a single permanent campaign staffer on the ground. And most importantly, because Minnesota voters’ sudden pivot toward Biden has turned Sanders’s anti-establishment message on its head.
Klobuchar’s decision to drop out and endorse Biden almost certainly gave Biden the political momentum he needed in the state, as my colleague Tiana Lowe explains. As of a few days ago, Sanders was the projected winner in Minnesota and polls estimated that Klobuchar’s sudden exit would help him, not hurt him.
But now it is clear that thousands of Minnesota Democrats changed their minds over the past few days, turning out in large numbers for Biden, not Sanders. It was the voters who decided this election — not the Democratic National Committee, or the establishment, but the thousands of voters hesitant to tie themselves to a socialist.
This must be a shock to Sanders’s base, which has spent the past few months arguing the Democratic establishment is actively trying to undermine Sanders’s campaign. For all we know, the establishment could be doing just that. But Biden’s Minnesota win is proof that Sanders has more than just the DNC to worry about. He must face the voters, too.
