Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

After 32 Years of Running for President, Biden Clinches It

Sanders’s decision to drop out is big news. The bigger story is how the 77-year-old former vice president finally prevailed.

April 8, 2020 at 8:05 PM UTC

By Jonathan Bernstein

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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Former Vice President Joe Biden has gone from what political scientist Josh Putnam has called the presumptive presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to being the just plain presumptive Democratic nominee.

Bernie Sanders finally saw that there was no realistic chance of winning the nomination, and that dropping out now was the way to maximize his influence. Surely his decision to suspend his campaign was due in part to the coronavirus lockdown, and the halt to normal campaigning.