Biden roars back on Super Tuesday

A resurgent Joe Biden scored victories from Texas to Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, revitalizing a presidential bid that was teetering on the edge of disaster just days earlier. But his rival Bernie Sanders seized the biggest prize with a win in California that ensured he－and his embrace of democratic socialism－would drive the Democrats' nomination fight for the foreseeable future.

And suddenly, the Democratic Party's presidential field, which featured more than half a dozen candidates a week ago, transformed into a two-man contest.

Biden and Sanders, lifelong politicians with starkly different visions for the future of the United States, were battling for delegates as 14 states and one US territory held a series of high-stakes elections that marked the most significant day of voting in the party's 2020 presidential nomination fight.

It could take weeks－or months－for the party to pick one of them to take on US President Donald Trump in the November presidential election. But the new contours of the fight between Biden and Sanders crystallized as the former vice-president and the three-term Vermont senator spoke to each other from dueling victory speeches delivered from opposite ends of the country on Tuesday night.

"People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement, "Biden said in Los Angeles, knocking one of Sanders' signature lines.

Without citing his surging rival by name, Sanders swiped at Biden from Burlington, Vermont.

"You cannot beat Trump with the same-old, same-old kind of politics," Sanders declared.

Biden drew support from a broad coalition of moderates and conservatives, African Americans and voters older than 45, polls showed.

Sanders' success was built on a base of energized liberals, young people and Latinos. But he was unable to sufficiently widen his appeal to older voters and college graduates who make up a sizable share of voters.

The other two high-profile candidates still in the shrinking Democratic field, New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, were teetering on the edge of viability. Warren finished in an embarrassing third place in her home state, and Bloomberg planned to reassess his candidacy on Wednesday after spending more than half a billion dollars to score a single victory－in American Samoa.

Tornadoes kill 25

In Tennessee, hours before people voted in the Super Tuesday primaries, tornadoes ripped through the southern US state early on Tuesday, leaving at least 25 people dead, destroying buildings and toppling power lines.

Voting hours were extended due to the devastation the twisters wrought when they touched down shortly after midnight－rubble was strewed across the state capital Nashville.

Residents ran for their lives as their homes came down around them. Tens of thousands lost power to their homes, officials said.

"It hit so fast, a lot of folks didn't have time to take shelter," Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. "Many of these folks were sleeping."

The governor declared an emergency and sent the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. An unspecified number of people were missing.

The balance of Super Tuesday's battlefield－with Biden winning at least eight states and Sanders four-raised questions about whether the Democratic primary contest would stretch all the way to the July convention or be decided much sooner.

The former vice-president showed strength in the Northeast with a victory in Massachusetts. He won delegate-rich Texas in the Southwest, Minnesota in the upper Midwest and finished on top across the South in Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas－in addition to Oklahoma.

Sanders opened the night as the undisputed Democratic front-runner and was in a position to claim an insurmountable delegate lead. And while he scored the night's biggest delegate-prize in California, he scored just three other decisive victories, winning his home state of Vermont, along with Utah and Colorado.

Agencies, Xinhua and <span class="epaper-contributor">William Hennelly</span> in New York contributed to this story.