Biden sweeps Virginia in Super Tuesday primaries

Joe Biden was the 47th Vice President of the United States under the Obama administration. Prior to that, he was a Delaware senator from 1973 to 2009.

Biden’s plan for education beyond high school includes investing in community colleges by providing two years of community college or a high quality training program without debt, and doubling the maximum value of Pell grants to increase the number of middle-class Americans who can participate in the program. He would also expand or fix existing debt-relief programs.

The former vice president has campaigned to eliminate private prisons and mandatory minimum sentencing. Biden supports buyback programs for assault weapons, universal background checks and a national firearm registry

He has not supported “Medicare For All,” a national program that would guarantee health insurance for every American, but would expand coverage. He’s open to letting states decide whether to legalize marijuana and has campaigned on scrapping previous marijuana convictions.

To fight climate change, Biden supports the development of nuclear technologies.

Biden has been criticized for his handling of “redlining,” a process by which neighborhoods deemed too risky for lenders to issue mortgages were outlined in red. Those lines were often drawn around primarily black areas.

Bernie Sanders is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination a second time after losing to Hillary Clinton in 2016. He began his political career as the Mayor of Burlington and has served as a Vermont senator since 2007.

Sanders’ platform focuses on taxing the wealthy, protection for the environment, women’s rights, funding for arts and youth programs and affordable housing. 

He also plans on implementing a “housing for all” plan by using government expenditures to pay for construction and rental assistance. This plan would cap the increase of rent to no more than 3% the rate of inflation. 

Sanders’ Medicare plan gives all people access to medical services including vision, hearing and dental. The proposed bill makes it illegal to sell similar private health insurance. Prescription costs would be dependent on income and funded by a 4% income tax and a reallocation of the current governmental spending. 

Sanders wants to cancel all student loan debts, give felons the right to vote while imprisoned and abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE.

Elizabeth Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, has campaigned on ending corruption in Washington by raising taxes on income, capital gains, corporate income and financial institutions.

Warren has campaigned on free higher education, eliminating student loan debt and boosting teacher pay. She plans on capping these benefits to households who earn more than $250,000. If she wins, Warren has vowed to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. 

She’s also proposed plans to ban fracking and reduce carbon emissions and supports the Green New Deal, which would transition the U.S. to renewable energy. 

Warren, who has served in Massachusetts since 2013, supports a voluntary buyback program for assault weapons, universal background checks and a national firearm registry.

She is not in favor of limits on abortion, supports Medicare For All and hopes to lower drug costs by government production of prescription drugs.

After serving three terms as the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg has run his campaign on gun safety, climate change, education, women’s rights and health care.

The billionaire owns Bloomberg L.P., a financial, software and data company that employs 20,000 people. He says that as the mayor of New York, he created nearly a half-million jobs, expanded health insurances to 700,000 people, reduced the city’s carbon footprint, and cut the incarceration rate by almost 40%. 

Bloomberg plans to launch new programs to connect people to job training through apprenticeship programs, streamlining the federal government’s career training programs, and making programs more affordable.

Bloomberg plans to build a more effective background check system. He wants to close the “boyfriend” loophole, which allows domestic abusers to have guns, despite having criminal convictions or restraining orders. 

Bloomberg would lead a nationwide initiative to rebuild infrastructure with 100% clean energy technology, reducing carbon pollution by 50% by 2030 and to net zero carbon by 2050 or sooner.  

As mayor of New York, Bloomberg implemented “stop and frisk,” a policy that allows police officers to temporarily detain, question and search residents. That policy was criticized for being overwhelmingly used against black and Latino people.