Mar 6, 2024,06:52am EST
In the Democratic primary in American Samoa on Super Tuesday, businessman Jason Palmer shocked incumbent President Joe Biden, propelling the obscure challenger into the public eye even as he concedes he won’t secure the nomination.
Important Information
While Biden received 40 votes and Palmer received 51 in American Samoa, both candidates will receive three delegates from the territory’s election.
The Associated Press says that Palmer won the election despite never having been to American Samoa. However, The New York Times points out that his campaign might have been the only one to go to the territory, which does not participate in the general election.
In November 2023, the 52-year-old businessman declared his intention to “pass the torch to a new generation of Americans” and advocated for a “talent economy powered by mission-driven entrepreneurs and conscious capitalism,” marking his entry into the Democratic contest.
According to his LinkedIn page, Palmer, a Harvard Business School alumnus, is a general partner at New Markets Venture Partners. He has also had positions at Microsoft, Kaplan, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among other organizations.
Palmer told CNN that while he was “surprised” to have won, he thought his “message about focusing on education, health care, and climate change really resonated.”
In addition to focusing on ideas, solutions, and changing the conversation, Palmer acknowledges on his campaign website that he is a “longshot candidate with very little chance of winning.” He further claims that his campaign is aimed at attracting younger voters and “beta test[ing] how an outsider campaign can be run like a ‘lean startup’ by leveraging artificial intelligence, growth hacking, and guerilla marketing.”
THINGS TO BE Aware Of
“Winning enough delegates to the Democratic National Convention to make education a priority issue in this election,” according to Palmer, is his election-related objective, he told The New York Times. The businessman will next run for office in Arizona, where the March 19 primary is scheduled.
HUGE AMOUNT $573,850. Based on Federal Election Commission reports, as of the end of January, that is the total amount of money raised by Palmer’s campaign. Palmer appears to have lent almost all of the money—$536,710—to his campaign.
Chief Critic
Palmer’s victory was written off by the Biden campaign as “silly news” on CNN on Tuesday, pointing out that there weren’t many votes in the territory and that Palmer had a “platform of being an advocate for American Samoa.” Outside of the territory, Biden won every other race on Tuesday.
Astonishing truth
American Samoa has a history of selecting unconventional candidates. During the 2020 election, the territory was the only one where billionaire Michael Bloomberg managed to win the Democratic primary.
ESSENTIAL PREFACE
For a considerable amount of time, it was assumed that Biden would easily win the Democratic primary and advance to the nomination. Palmer is the president’s only serious opponent; the other being Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and Marianne Williamson, who withdrew her candidacy in the beginning but then changed her mind and entered the race again in February. However, the 81-year-old president’s age has remained a point of contention for voters, and significant segments of the Democratic primary electorate have voted “uncommitted” in order to express disapproval of the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. This has caused problems for the Biden campaign. This persisted on Tuesday, when “uncommitted” received nearly 20% of the vote in Minnesota and was the second most popular option in six of the 14 states that held elections.