rambutan 8k8Biden is closer to securing nomination

With 971 pledged delegates in primaries, former vice-president is ahead of Sanders

Joe Biden is now assumed to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after another strong showing in primaries Tuesday.

He now has 971 pledged delegates to 737 for his main opponent, Bernie Sanders, according to Edison Research, while the latter said he was assessing his campaign's prospects.

Biden, the former vice-president for Barack Obama, is now a little more than 1,000 delegates away from the 1,991 needed to secure the nomination on the first ballot at the Democratic National Convention (July 13-16) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (if it takes place as scheduled in light of the constantly changing novel coronavirus epidemic).

Biden easily won contests in Florida, Illinois and Arizona on Tuesday. Ohio, which was scheduled to hold its primary Tuesday, postponed it until June because of the impact of COVID-19.

Georgia and Louisiana also have postponed primaries that were coming up on March 24 and April 4, respectively.

The Sanders campaign had to refute a story Wednesday saying that the 78-year-old US senator from Vermont already had suspended his bid for the White House.

Mike Casca, Sanders campaign communications director, called the story published by Axios, a news and information company, "absolutely false" in a post on Twitter.

The story later was revised to say the campaign had only suspended its Facebook advertising.

Axios posted a correction saying: "Sen. Bernie Sanders has not suspended his presidential campaign. This story corrects an earlier version that stated he had."

As for Sanders capitulating, his campaign manager Fail Shakir said in a statement Wednesday: "The next primary contest is at least three weeks away. Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign."

Still, Sanders is proving to be less viable of a candidate than he was in 2016, when he continued his primary battle with eventual nominee Hillary Clinton until June of that year

In a normal year, presidential primary results would be the subject of intense interest, but the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis, which has devastated the global economy and markets, has pushed most other news off front pages and TV screens.

In remarks from his home in Wilmington, Delaware, late Tuesday, Biden said that it was "important to get through this crisis protecting both the public health and our democracy".

The Biden campaign, which had scheduled a virtual fundraiser for Thursday, said on Wednesday that it would be postponed.

"We are really looking forward to convening with you virtually. As we are adjusting to all of the changes and still in transition, we would like to postpone our virtual event until next week. We will follow up shortly with the new date," a Biden campaign representative said in an email to donors on Wednesday, according to CNBC.

Biden's success has substantially been attributed to the fact that he and Democratic primary voters have not embraced some of the more radical positions of the party's progressive wing－such as free healthcare－led by the democratic socialist Sanders.

Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the campaign of President Donald Trump, who secured the Republican Party nomination on Tuesday, said Wednesday that Biden indeed is embracing elements of the agenda pushed by Sanders and US Representative from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

"Biden has had to move so far to the left," Murtaugh added.

Reuters contributed to this story.