Biden wins NC as part of the Southern comeback after a faltering campaign

Former Vice President Joe Biden easily won North Carolina’s Democratic primary Tuesday, riding a wave of Southern victories that has resurrected his campaign.

In final but unofficial results, Biden had 43% of the vote to 24% for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and nearly 13% for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts had just over 10%.

North Carolina was part of a Super Tuesday that appeared to reshape the Democratic primary as a two-person race between Biden and Sanders. Only California and Texas had more delegates at stake.

Biden was projected to score big wins in Virginia and Alabama and claim victories in Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma. In North Carolina, he captured more than 90 of the state’s 100 counties.

After poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden saw his fortunes change Saturday in South Carolina. His big win there prompted first Tom Steyer and then former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar to drop out.

Bloomberg ended his campaign Wednesday morning and endorsed Biden.

“I’m not surprised at the result,” state Democratic Chair Wayne Goodwin said of Tuesday’s results. “I believe the South Carolina primary increased support for him. . . . North Carolina is the battleground state. The road to the White House goes straight through North Carolina.”

Record spending

Until recently, surveys showed Biden and Sanders in a tight race with Bloomberg in North Carolina. That changed after South Carolina. Exit polls showed that Biden won 60% of African American votes in North Carolina, just as he did in the Palmetto State.

A CNN exit poll also found nearly 3 in 10 N.C. voters said they made up their minds in the last few days. One was Benjamin Hudson. The Charlotte college student said he had planned to vote for Buttigieg or Klobuchar. When they gave their support to Biden on Monday, he did too.

“The country needs somebody that’s a little bit more moderate,” said Hudson, 21. “You have an extreme right guy — Trump — that’s in office right now, and if you go to the extreme left wing you’re not going to get anything done.”

In his first test as a presidential candidate, Bloomberg made North Carolina a priority. He opened his first office in any state in Charlotte last December. He assembled a paid staff of around 125 and had field offices across the state.

He also contributed heavily to making the primary’s record spending.

Bloomberg spent $15 million on advertising in North Carolina, according to Advertising Analytics. All together candidates spent more than $20.4 million on advertising in the state. That compares with a total of $5.1 million in the 2012 primary and $2.8 million in 2016.

He’d been endorsed by a former governor, the mayors of Charlotte and Raleigh and the Democratic leaders of the state House and Senate. For all that, he appeared not meet the 15% threshold to win delegates.

“We needed to look at who could basically deliver the bacon,” Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue of Raleigh said Tuesday of his endorsement. “I’ve been supporting Joe Biden but nothing was happening. It looked lethargic, with no energy. It’s just the opposite now. It’s refreshing to see.”

Blue said Bloomberg has promised to keep his campaign infrastructure in the state no matter who wins the nomination. “Keeping that here for the duration of the campaign through the end of October will be absolutely amazing in enabling us to conduct the campaign all across this state that we need. . . . As long as North Carolina is one of those five or six key states, we’re going to have what we need to flip the legislature.”

Sanders hoped to improve his 2016 performance in North Carolina, when he won 41% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 55%. He appealed to younger voters like Monique Williamson of Charlotte. A marriage and family therapist, she said health care was a top issue in her decision.

“I have health care, but I know it’s a huge concern for most families. It’s causing families to go bankrupt,” said Williamson, 29. “It’s a horrible thing to have to choose between a cancer treatment and if you live or die, especially when most developed countries in the world already have (universal health care).”

‘Top tier states’

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, was winning more than 94% of the vote in the GOP primary.

N.C. Republican Chair Michael Whatley said Tuesday night that North Carolina “is one of the top tier states that President Trump needs to carry in order to get reelected.”

“It’s one of the four most important states in the entire country,” Whatley said as the election results came in. “We know It. The Democrats know it and we know that this is going to be absolutely a tip of the iceberg kind of event for us.”

Observer staff writers Danielle Chemtob and Lauren Lindstrom and The News & Observer’s Lynn Bonner, Keung Hui, Martha Quillin and Lucille Sherman contributed.