Biden defeats Sanders in Minnesota Super Tuesday race
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, is joined by former rival Sen. Amy Klobuchar, left, during a campaign stop in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2020. At center is Jill Biden. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A pedestrian walks past the flag and voting place site at the downtown library in Minneapolis as part of Minnesota's Super Tuesday presidential nomination primary March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
James Kelsey, 24, votes at a Lutheran church on the south side of Moorhead, Minn., on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Kelsey said he voted for Bernie Sanders because he and other Sanders supporters are "tired of what's going on." (AP Photo/Dave Kolpack)
A voter places his ballot in the ballot counter at the downtown library polling site in Minneapolis as part of Minnesota's Super Tuesday presidential nomination primary March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
A voter silhouetted against the city hall clock tower leaves the voting booth with ballot in hand at the downtown library polling site in Minneapolis as part of Minnesota's Super Tuesday presidential nomination primary March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
Supporters for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., cheer before a campaign rally, Monday, March 2, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn. The abrupt withdrawal of Amy Klobuchar from the presidential race gives front-runner Bernie Sanders a sudden opportunity for locking up her home state on Super Tuesday. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King)
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar speaks to her supporters during a campaign rally at The Depot in Salt Lake City, Monday, March 2, 2020. Klobuchar's withdrawal from the presidential race gives front-runner Bernie Sanders a sudden opportunity for locking up her home state on Super Tuesday. (Steve Griffin/The Deseret News via AP)
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., endorses Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden at a campaign rally Monday, March 2, 2020 in Dallas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., leaves a campaign rally Monday, March 2, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. leaves a campaign rally Monday, March 2, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Andy Clayton-King)
Democratic presidential candidate former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg speaks during a FOX News Channel Town Hall, co-moderated by FNC's chief political anchor Bret Baier of Special Report and The Story anchor Martha MacCallum, at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, Va., Monday, March 2, 2020. Bloomberg has spent heavily on TV ads for weeks in Minnesota as part of a Super Tuesday strategy that bypassed the earliest-voting states. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 29, 2020, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks to supporters during a town hall at Discovery Green in Houston. Among Minnesota's progressives, Warren has been Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders' rival going into Super Tuesday. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Joe Biden defeated Bernie Sanders in the Super Tuesday primary in Minnesota, where Amy Klobuchar's abrupt withdrawal from the presidential race gave the former vice president a boost despite his nearly nonexistent campaign in the state.
Sanders, who easily won Minnesota’s caucuses in 2016, had been hoping to capitalize on his status as front-runner coming into the night, taking advantage of his large and motivated progressive base in the state. Elizabeth Warren and Mike Bloomberg were a distant third and fourth.
Klobuchar’s decision to throw her support to Biden forced her supporters to make a quick second choice, and Biden was the clear beneficiary of an effort by moderates to unify behind him. Retiree Susan Beaubaire, 69, said after voting in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina that she had planned to vote for Klobuchar before she dropped out, and that her top priority was ousting President Donald Trump.
“I voted for Biden because I feel that he has the best chance of potentially beating Trump. ... He represents, of the people left, a more moderate view," Beaubaire said. “And I think the country just needs somebody who’s going to calm things down.”
Sanders made a bid for Klobuchar's and Pete Buttigieg's supporters in a Monday night rally in St. Paul, noting big policy differences but a shared desire to evict Trump from the White House.
“The door is open," he said. "Come on in.”
But change in Washington doesn’t look the same to everyone, based on preliminary results from AP VoteCast, a survey of 1,300 voters, conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.
About 6 in 10 Minnesota voters said they preferred a candidate who will pursue practical, centrist policies to one pursuing bold liberal policies. Having “the right experience,” being willing to work across the aisle and having the best policy ideas were considered very significant by a similar ratio. Nearly 9 in 10 said it was very important to pick a nominee who could beat Trump.
Biden entered Super Tuesday with momentum from winning South Carolina on Saturday, but his campaign put few resources into Minnesota as it focused on earlier-voting states and bigger prizes. He competed in the moderate lane with Bloomberg, who had little to show for weeks of spending heavily on TV and social media ads in the state. Warren provided a progressive alternative.
Many Minnesota voters also had no chance to shift their vote. Almost 84,000 Democrats cast early ballots in the primary — thousands of them for Klobuchar — and her exit came too late for them to be clawed back.
Minnesota had 75 national convention delegates up for grabs.
In the northwestern Minnesota city of Moorhead, 36-year-old librarian Al Bernardo said he voted for Sanders and never even considered his home-state senator.
"I think Bernie is the only candidate who can beat Trump,” he said. "He’s running on a platform that will do the most to help the most people in the country. I think the way he is organizing his campaign represents a new movement in the Democratic Party that has been lacking in recent years.”
Adam Pankow, 39, a member of the Fargo-Moorhead Community Theatre, had planned on voting for Klobuchar, but took her advice and voted for Biden. He said he saw Biden as “a great choice to ultimately beat Trump.”
It was Minnesota's first presidential primary since 1992, and the first that's binding on both parties since 1956. The state ditched a caucus system after 2016 saw long lines and chaotic gatherings in some places, but the primary rules have raised privacy concerns that may dampen turnout. Voters' names and party preferences must be reported to the state's major parties.
Trump had the Minnesota GOP primary ballot to himself after party leaders decided not to list any Republican challengers, though write-in votes were allowed.
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Associated Press writers Dave Kolpack in Moorhead, Minnesota, and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed.