Bernie Sanders’ campaign is being forced to push back on reports that he is suspending his campaign after Axios initially reported that he was dropping out.
Axios began their story, titled, “Bernie Sanders suspends presidential campaign” with the line, “Bernie Sanders is suspending his presidential campaign after Joe Biden swept all three primary states on Tuesday, further extending his delegate lead, according to a source familiar.”
The story went on to say, “It’s an end to the campaign of the leading progressive in the race — and the candidate who seemed to be the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination less then a month ago. It also makes Biden the presumptive nominee four months before the party’s convention in Milwaukee.”
The reporting quickly went viral on Twitter where reporters seemed largely confused and Sanders’ campaign communications director tweeted that the reporting was “absolutely false.”
absolutely false. https://t.co/a04vDJwOX8
— mike casca (@cascamike) March 18, 2020
Axios later issued a correction but the original report was already published, so a number of people had taken screenshots.
https://twitter.com/misyrlena/status/1240309049914200065?s=20
Like a number of outlets — including IJR — Axios reported that Sanders is suspending Facebook ads. Some reporters, like Daily Beast’s Sam Stein wondered if people had simply misread Axios’ reporting.
It appears people misread an Axios report. He is “suspending” his Facebook ads. Not his campaign https://t.co/F6CFHpfRMM
— Sam Stein (@samstein) March 18, 2020
In their correction, Axios wrote, “Sen. Bernie Sanders has not suspended his presidential campaign. This story corrects an earlier version that stated he had.”
After his losses in Florida, Arizona and Illinois on Tuesday night, Sanders’ campaign said that the Vermont senator will “assess his campaign.”
This is not the first time that Axios has jumped the gun on a story and been forced to issue a correction. In September of 2018, Axios reported that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was resigning. They later issued a correction saying that Rosenstein had offered to resign — he did not resign until May of 2019.