WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden was winning every Democratic race by a landslide. super tuesday — Excluding American Samoa.
There he fell short to a previously unknown candidate named Jason Palmer. Of the 91 votes cast in the territory's caucuses, Mr. Palmer received 51 votes to Mr. Biden's 40, according to local political parties.
“I knew I had won when my friends and campaign staff started texting me and my cell phone started dying,” Palmer said in an interview late Tuesday.
Palmer, 52, said he had never visited the territory before the caucus.
“I've been campaigning remotely, doing town halls on Zoom, talking to people, listening to their concerns and what's important to them,” he said.
The result is unlikely to derail Biden's path to winning the party's nomination. The U.S. territory, a collection of small islands in the South Pacific with fewer than 50,000 residents, had just six representatives at stake. Mr. Palmer and Mr. Biden each received three delegates.
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The day before the caucuses, Mr. Palmer wrote to X: “I can't wait to see a president in Washington, D.C. who will be the champion of American Samoa.” His account includes a photo of a young man holding a homemade election sign.
Palmer lives in Baltimore and often works on technology and education issues for a variety of companies and nonprofit organizations. He said voters want “someone more 21st century than Joe Biden” to be president.
Mr. Palmer loaned more than $500,000 of his own money to his campaign, according to campaign finance records.
“You can't take money with you when you die,” he said. “But you can change the world while you're here.”
Residents of U.S. territories vote in primaries but have no representation in the Electoral College.
American Samoa has been the site of incredible victories. In the 2020 Democratic primary, billionaire Michael Bloomberg achieved the only victory in the region.
