Daniel DePetris

Ever since Super Tuesday, when Joe Biden pulled off upset wins in Texas, Massachusetts, and Minnesota on his way to ten state-wide wins, the tables have turned. It is now Bernie Sanders, the frontrunner only a few weeks ago, who needs a victory to breath new life into his campaign. The best, and likely only, shot for gaining back momentum in the race: grabbing Michigan. Sanders has some experience shocking the political world with upset political wins. During his first presidential campaign against Democratic establishment favourite Hillary Clinton, the white-haired populist with the Brooklyn accent swept Michigan’s rural counties and did well enough in the suburbs to claim the state by just 1.5 per centage points.

It was a long and winding rollercoaster ride for Elizabeth Warren on the presidential campaign trail. And when that ride ended, everybody who planted their feet back on earth was a little nauseous. Warren, the two-term senator from Massachusetts and anti-bank regulator with a work ethic and professor’s aura, reassessed the state of her campaign today and determined that it was time to get out of the race with dignity. Warren’s team expected to finish in second place in a number of states on ‘Super Tuesday’, which would have given her an excuse to stay in the race ­– as she increased her delegate count.

Joe Biden desperately needed a win in South Carolina. His poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, and sub-par showing in Nevada, meant that nothing short of a blowout win in the Palmetto State would suffice for the former vice president. He poured his heart and soul into the state, pulling off the ol’ Joe routine to a tee. It worked better than Biden himself could have imagined. Before a single ballot was counted, the networks called South Carolina for Biden. You may wonder why the election analysts were so confident? Two words: exit polls. Biden dominated with every grouping with the exception of voters under the age of 30 and Americans who were devoutly secular. South Carolinians aged 65 and older went for Biden by 44 points.

Bernie Sanders is a phenomenon in much the same way as Donald Trump was a phenomenon in 2016. His supporters worship him. His enemies detest him. And the reporters covering him are unsure what to make of his rise and appeal. Like Trump’s presidential candidacy four years ago, Sanders’ candidacy is riding on the back of extreme discontent in America. There are millions of Americans working longer hours for stagnant wages and spending a good chunk of what they do take in on health insurance premiums, rent, mortgage payments and loan payoffs. There is a pervasive disgust about the rich sending their money to tax havens while the average schlub is forking over cash to Uncle Sam.

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address began with a snub to Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she extended her hand across the dais for the customary greeting. It ended with a visibly annoyed Pelosi ripping the copy of her speech and slamming it down on the table. And those were the boring parts of the event. Trump, the reality television expert, turned the hour-and-a-half long address into, well, a reality show. He gave a young schoolgirl a scholarship, surprised conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh with the presidential medal of freedom, and shocked a wife and her two children when her military-clad husband emerged from the darkness and hugged her warmly after getting back from his last deployment.

Voters in Iowa lined up in high-school gymnasiums across the state last night to prepare for a long few hours of caucusing. But nobody predicted the process would stretch late into the night without a single vote having been certified by the Iowa Democratic party. By midnight, the rival campaigns were flummoxed, unable to officially declare victory but nonetheless determined to spin the night in glowing terms. Caucuses can be chaotic. But the events last night were nothing short of bedlam. Rumour has it that national frontrunner Joe Biden had a terrible showing, but that didn’t stop the former vice president from rallying the troops and pretending everything was OK. Mayor Pete Buttigieg declared himself the winner, a pronouncement that came as news to every other candidate.

Kamala Harris began her campaign with an impressive display of political might: a gigantic late-January rally in her hometown of Oakland, California, where 22,000 people turned up for her first major speech as a presidential candidate. “We are at an inflection point in the history of our nation,” the senator from California bellowed into the microphone. “We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before. And we are here at this moment in time because we must answer a fundamental question: Who are we?”  On 4 December, it all came crashing down.

Donald Trump was given a hard deadline from judiciary committee chairman Jerrold Nadler: if you want to defend yourself against impeachment, you must do so by 6 December. It didn’t take Trump long to respond: over my dead body. But while Trump's bravado is not a surprise, his impeachment strategy is not without its risks.  White House counsel Pat Cipollone delivered a five-page letter to the senior Democratic lawmaker excoriating the process and taking issue with the entire inquiry.