No Malarkey: It’s Probably Going to Be Joe Biden
Inevitability is in the air.
Joe Biden scored a series of victories Tuesday night, building a delegate lead over Bernie Sanders and putting himself on course to become the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
Biden won by large margins in Mississippi and Missouri, where he was expected to do well. More significantly, he’s the projected winner in Michigan, the state Sanders had hoped would help him keep pace. Sanders campaigned heavily in Michigan in the past week, hoping to repeat the shock victory he had over Hillary Clinton in 2016. And for a while, the democratic socialist appeared on track to score a majority of the state’s 125 delegates. Polling averages showed Sanders more than 10 points ahead a week ago, but Biden surged following his strong showing on Super Tuesday and was up in some polls by more than 20 points in the days before voting.
The former vice president appears to have won comfortably, with multiple outlets projecting Biden the winner before 10 p.m. eastern. (Election officials will continue counting ballots overnight.)
Biden’s turnaround in Michigan mirrors his tremendous turn of fortune in the primary overall. He struggled in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, while Sanders won the popular vote in each state. Biden bet it all on South Carolina, hoping his longtime support among black voters would be enough to resuscitate a campaign on the brink.
His faith was rewarded with a win in South Carolina that vaulted him back to the front of the pack. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out shortly thereafter, each throwing their backing to Biden as the field consolidated against Sanders. From there, Biden dominated on Super Tuesday, taking a delegate lead he appears unlikely to relinquish.
For Sanders, who did not speak publicly after Tuesday’s results, the second straight Tuesday loss means falling further behind Biden and with few options for winning the nomination. The Democratic primary does not have winner-take-all states (the GOP primary does), meaning that even if Sanders wins upcoming states, he’ll be fighting an uphill battle to close the delegate gap. He came into Tuesday night down by more than 100 delegates. He’ll end Tuesday down by far more.
Sanders and Biden are slated to debate Sunday night, but there are few bright spots ahead for Sanders. In Florida, where voters next week will allocate the state’s 219 delegates next week, Biden leads by more than 35 percentage points.
If that polling lead translates into a primary-day victory, Biden will have all but won a nomination battle that lasted two years and included two-dozen candidates — what was, at one time, the most diverse primary field in history.
In the end, however, it appears the a 77-year-old white man — one with tremendous support among African American voters — will be the Democratic party’s 2020 nominee.
He’d face incumbent President Donald Trump, who was impeached for using his office to pressure the government of Ukraine to announce an investigation into Biden and his son, Hunter. If Biden were to lose, Trump would win a second term that would extend through January, 2025.
Here’s a rundown of the results from the latest round of Democratic primary voting:
IDAHO
Projected Winner: Joe Biden
Delegates Available: 20
MICHIGAN
Projected Winner: Joe Biden
Key Stats: Exit polls conducted by NBC News showed Biden winning 66 percent of black voters in Michigan, with just 29 percent voting for Sanders.
Delegates Available: 125
MISSOURI
Projected Winner: Joe Biden
Key Stats: Biden won Missouri with overwhelming support from voters over 45 — a whopping 70 percent of the state’s electorate. Older Missourians preferred his candidacy to Sanders’ 71 percent to 27 percent. Voters age 44 and younger preferred Sanders at similar rates: 68 percent to 21 percent.
Delegates Available: 68
MISSISSIPPI
Projected Winner: Joe Biden
Key Stats: A vast majority of black voters — 84 percent — supported Biden on Tuesday, according to exit polls, and black voters over 60 were nearly unanimous in their choice: 94 percent of them preferred the former vice president, a scant three percent cast votes for the Vermont senator.
Delegates Available: 36
NORTH DAKOTA
Projected Winner: TBD
Delegates Available: 14
WASHINGTON
Projected Winner: TBD
Key Stats: TBD
Delegates Available: 89
This post will be updated live as results become available.