Joe Biden had a very good night last night on Super Tuesday, winning several Southern states (including Texas!) as well as Massachusetts and Minnesota, while Bernie Sanders won Vermont, Colorado, and Utah and the primary's biggest prize, California. Five Thirty Eight's Sarah Frostenson recaps the Night Joe Came Back.
Well, it’ll still be days or weeks before we have the full vote total in California, and it’s still too close to call in Maine, but with Texas now in the win column for Biden, this evening’s top-line takeaway is even clearer: Biden mounted a comeback and won Super Tuesday.
In total, Biden won nine of the 15 primary contests at stake tonight, pulling off a number of upset victories, including a win in Minnesota (we’d projected Sanders would win there), a win in Massachusetts (Sanders again), and a win in Texas (that was more of a toss-up going into tonight), but basically Biden cleaned up across the board. He performed well in states where he wasn’t even really competing, and he proved he’s more than a regional candidate.
Sanders, on the other hand, did not have a great evening. He won just three states outright (Colorado, Utah and Vermont) and underperformed expectations. So far, he does seem on track to win delegate-rich California, though we won’t know the exact margin for a while yet.
Once all the Super Tuesday results are fully counted, 38 percent of delegates will have been awarded in the primary race, but this nomination fight is far from over, and there’s a real question about where it will go from here.
The big story from Super Tuesday was that young Democratic voters didn't show up for Bernie's revolution. Not even close.
Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.
In addition, the Vermont senator has been grabbing a smaller share of them in most cases.
- In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
- In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
- In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.
- In Tennessee, 11% of those voters showed up Tuesday versus 15% in 2016. Sanders did better among that group Tuesday winning 65% compared to 61% four years ago.
- In Virginia, young voters comprised 13% of Tuesday’s vote compared to 16% in 2016. Sanders won 57% of those voters Tuesday compared to 69% four years ago.
Even Sanders’ home state of Vermont showed a lackluster turnout of young millennials and 'Gen Zers.' Only 10% of the state’s electorate were under 30 compared to 15% when he ran against Clinton, according to exit polls.
And a similar trend was playing out in Texas where 16% of voters were between 17 and 29 compared to 20% in 2016.
Sanders couldn't get the numbers he got from four years ago, even in his home state. The why of that is two words: Liz Warren. She split Sanders's votes far more than Bloomberg split Biden's haul.
And speaking of Liz Warren, she came in a distant third pretty much everywhere last night, even in her home state of Massachusetts.
Elizabeth Warren had a plan for winning. It didn't work: In 18 nomination contests, she hasn't finished above third place — including in her home state.
Now, she's facing political and financial pressures to get out.
Warren's campaign declined to comment on her next steps after her dismal Super Tuesday performance. But allies who speak regularly with the campaign say the mood was bleak. A small wave of last-minute endorsements from groups like EMILY’s List, along with late financial help from a super PAC, did not significantly move the needle.
That's left the Warren campaign to wonder whether a path forward exists. While the campaign had insisted it still saw an opening by going to the convention — she will likely collect at least several dozen delegates Tuesday — the results were far below their own publicly-released projections.
How well Bernie Sanders does from here depends on how long Liz Warren stays in the race. As I said after Nevada, unless something happened that changed the entire trajectory of the primary race on Super Tuesday, Bernie was going to be the presumptive nominee.
That something was "Joe Biden winning in SC and both Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropping out and endorsing him."
It's a fight now. Sanders remains ahead in national polling. But Joe did something I thought that couldn't happen: he most likely ended up with more total delegates last night. The resurrection of his campaign is something unprecedented. A week ago we were counting Biden out and Bernie running the table seemed all but assured.
The "all but" happened.
Let the battle commence.
[UPDATE] Bloomberg is out.
BREAKING: Michael Bloomberg suspends campaign https://t.co/yNCVUDNe1g— Axios (@axios) March 4, 2020
Bye, Mike.
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