Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders both have canceled campaign rallies planned for Illinois amid ongoing concerns about the spread of coronavirus in the state.
The Sanders campaign had been finalizing plans for a rally in Downstate Illinois before deciding Wednesday to cancel the event. Biden had plans for a Friday night rally in Chicago that will be replaced with a “virtual event.”
The Sanders cancellation, which was confirmed by a source in the campaign not authorized to discuss the plans publicly, comes after the senator already had scrapped a rally planned Tuesday in Rockford due to schedule constraints. Sanders instead planned an evening rally in Cleveland, which also was canceled after the state’s governor recommended against it to prevent spreading the virus.
The source and the Sanders campaign declined to identify which Downstate location was under consideration for the rally ahead of the Illinois primary next Tuesday. However, Sanders frequently visits college campuses for large get-out-the-vote rallies, including one Sunday in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that drew more than 10,000 people at the University of Michigan.
Sanders did, however, manage to hold a massive rally in Chicago on Saturday that drew 12,500 people, according to the campaign. Biden has yet to campaign in the state in the run-up to the primary.
The Sanders campaign has indicated it is taking the recommendations of local health officials seriously and is in the midst of planning smaller campaign gatherings in Illinois with those concerns in mind, the source said. Each planned event will be determined on a “case-by-case basis” in consultation with state and local officials.
Biden’s campaign had announced plans to hold an event in Chicago on Friday night but had yet to release details.
In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the campaign said, “At the request of elected officials in Illinois and Florida, we will no longer hold large crowd events on Friday and Monday in those states.”
Instead, the campaign said the rallies would “become virtual events, and the campaign will make announcements about additional details on the format and timing of the virtual events and on future events in the coming days.”
The former vice president already had canceled a Thursday rally planned for Tampa, Florida, and instead plans to given an address about the coronavirus in Wilmington, Delaware.
Voters in Illinois will head to the polls Tuesday with the state’s 155 pledged delegates at stake. Florida, Ohio and Arizona all will hold primaries the same day, as Biden has opened up a sizable delegate lead over Sanders.
On Wednesday, Biden announced the creation of a Public Health Advisory Committee within his campaign “to provide science-based, expert advice regarding steps the campaign should take to minimize health risks for the candidate, staff, and supporters.”
“The campaign’s top priority is and will continue to be the health and safety of the public,” the campaign said in a statement. “Members of the committee will provide ongoing counsel to the campaign, which will in turn continue to update the public regarding operational decisions.”
Included on the committee is Chicago native Dr. Zeke Emanuel, the vice provost of global initiatives and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Emanuel is the brother of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Twitter @BillRuthhart
