- Former vice president Joe Biden won four of the six states that held Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday.
- He is neck and neck with his rival, Bernie Sanders, in North Dakota and Washington state.
- 365 out of 3,979 delegates were at stake.
Results
State |
Delegates |
|||
Biden |
Sanders |
|||
| Idaho | 12 | 9 | ||
| Michigan | 73 | 52 | ||
| Mississippi | 34 | 2 | ||
| Missouri | 44 | 24 | ||
| North Dakota | 6 | 8 | ||
| Washington | 46 | 43 | ||
Total gained |
215 |
138 |
||
Total |
931 |
761 |
||
1,991 delegates needed to win the nomination.
Analysis
- Why Biden is the frontrunner: He is ahead in delegates, popular support and party endorsements.
- What’s next for Sanders? The rest of the March doesn’t look good for him.
All twenty delegates have been allocated in Idaho: Biden wins eleven and Sanders nine.
Biden’s delegate haul in Michigan has been updated to 72 and Sanders’ to 52. One delegate has yet to be allocated.
All but one of Missouri’s 68 delegates have also been allocated: Biden has 43 and Sanders 24.
Nearly all the votes have been counted in North Dakota and Sanders leads with 53 percent support. He wins eight of the state’s fourteen delegates and Biden six.
Altogether Biden now has 863 delegates against 710 for Sanders.
Full results from Democrats who voted abroad aren’t due until March 23.
Sanders says he’s staying in the race and looking forward to debating Biden on Sunday. CNN will host a debate in Phoenix, Arizona.
Good morning! Biden has added Idaho to his list of victories. With all the votes counted, the former vice president has 49 percent support there against 43 for Sanders. Biden wins at least nine of Idaho’s twenty delegates.
Nearly all the votes have been counted in Michigan and Biden still leads with 53 percent support. He is projected to win at least 53 of the state’s 125 delegates against 35 for Sanders.
Nearly all the votes have also been counted in Mississippi, where Biden leads with 81 percent support. He is projected to win at least 29 of the state’s 36 delegates. Sanders, who is under 15 percent support statewide, may only win a few delegates in some of the four congressional districts.
All the votes have been counted in Missouri, where Biden leads with 60 percent support. He is projected to win at least forty of the state’s 68 delegates against 23 for Sanders.
North Dakota and Washington are too close to call with the candidates neck and neck in terms of popular support and delegates. Biden and Sanders has so far won five and seventeen delegates each in those states, respectively.
I hope our readers in the American Northwest will forgive me if I turn in somewhat earlier than usual tonight. (It’s 3:30 in the morning here in Europe.) I will update the page with results from Idaho, North Dakota and Washington tomorrow morning my time.
Here are the latest results from the other three states:
- Michigan: 63 percent of the votes counted, Biden leads with 53 percent support.
- Mississippi: 62 percent of the votes counted, Biden leads with 81 percent support. Sanders is hovering around the 15 percent support required to win statewide delegates.
- Missouri: 51 percent of the votes counted, Biden leads with 60 percent support.
Biden is at 783 pledged delegates by the AP’s count, up 113 from this morning. Sanders is at 627, up 53. 1,991 delegates are needed to win the nomination on the first ballot.
Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you back tomorrow!
What’s next for Sanders?
I don’t see how Sanders recovers in the next few weeks. Arizona (with 67 pledged delegates at stake) may be his best bet. It has a large Latino population, and Sanders did well with Latino voters in other Western states.
On the other hand, Clinton won Arizona with 56 percent support in 2016. The only poll we have out of the state gives Biden a 28-point lead.
Florida (219), which has many older and Cuban American voters, is going to be a disaster for Sanders, a self-described socialist who made a point of defending Fidel Castro’s literacy program. I wrote this earlier: Sanders may have a point — but why make the point? There’s not a big pro-Castro constituency anywhere in the United States.
Illinois (155) and Ohio (136), which also vote on March 17, haven’t been polled recently, but I imagine a combination of white non-college men, especially in trade unions, and suburban women will give both states to Biden.
The following week, Georgia (105), where half of Democratic primary voters in 2016 were black, should be another victory for Biden.
By that time, two-thirds of the pledged delegates to the convention will have been allocated. For Sanders to catch up with Biden then would require him to suddenly win by huge margins in the remaining states.
Andrew Yang, who bowed out of the contest after the New Hampshire primary, has endorsed Biden.