Super Tuesday live updates: Sanders leading in California, Biden is projected to win seven states, including Virginia, N.C. and Arkansas

Former vice president Joe Biden is showing strength in the South and has extended his reach into the Upper Midwest, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has notched a few wins and leads in the California Democratic presidential primary, according to Edison Research Super Tuesday exit polling and a survey of absentee voters.
As of 11 p.m. Eastern, Biden is projected to win Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Minnesota, while Sanders is projected to win Vermont, Colorado and Utah. Polls are also closed in Maine, Massachusetts and Texas.
Late deciders fueled Biden’s victories in several states Tuesday, an indication his South Carolina victory and endorsements by other candidates played a role in his success. In Oklahoma, Biden won voters who decided in the last few days by a more than 2 to 1 margin over Sanders, while voters who decided earlier split nearly evenly between the two.
Super Tuesday marks the debut of former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg on ballots, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is attempting to gain traction after a string of disappointing showings. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is also competing.
Tuesday’s contests award 1,357 delegates, or 34 percent of the total available. Get all the Super Tuesday results here.
Biden has won North Carolina, Virginia, Minnesota, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Alabama | Sanders wins Colorado, Utah and home state of Vermont
11:59 p.m.

Analysis: Sanders continues to generally fare worse in 2020 than he did four years ago

Coming into Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders’s 2020 wasn’t going as well as his 2016 had. In the first four nominating contests, Sanders had earned less of the vote than he did four years ago and, in the three states for which there was comparable data, he had received 91,000 fewer votes than he did then.
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Part of this, certainly, is a function of the more crowded field. But Sanders’s candidacy is predicated on the idea that he will expand the Democratic voting base, a promise that would seem to suggest that he would gain support over time, not lose it.
All of that, again, was before voting began Tuesday. On Tuesday night, Sanders continued to underperform relative to four years ago.
Vote totals in Super Tuesday won’t be final for days or weeks to come, but it’s clear that in key places Sanders will do worse than he did in 2016. In his home state of Vermont, for example, Sanders shut out Hillary Clinton four years ago. This time, Joe Biden is poised to earn delegates. Sanders won Minnesota in 2016; this year, Biden won it. Same with Oklahoma. Four years ago, Sanders won Maine easily. This time? He’s running even with Biden.
Sanders can shift his numbers dramatically once votes from Texas and California come in. They’re big, populous states in which Sanders is expected to do well. He lost both to Clinton in 2016 by double digits, something that will almost certainly not happen this time around. (In part, that’s because Biden’s late surge won’t be reflected in ballots that were cast before the weekend.) But he may not surpass his vote totals in those states.
A week ago, it seemed like the arguments for Biden’s electability were overstated, given his performance. Today? It seems like maybe Sanders’s arguments aren’t as robust as they might have seemed.



By Felicia Sonmez, Reis Thebault, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Isaac Stanley-Becke

Super Tuesday live updates: Sanders leading in California, Biden is projected to win seven states, including Virginia, N.C. and Arkansas

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