Former Vice President Joe Biden will sweep Tuesday’s races and win the Arizona, Illinois and Florida Democratic primaries, CNN projects, victories that will allow him to substantially expand his delegate lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as they vie for the Democratic nomination.
Voters in Florida, Illinois and Arizona cast ballots Tuesday as the number of novel coronavirus cases in the US continued to rise at an alarming rate. The primaries came at a time when state and local officials are clearly conflicted about the ethics of asking Americans to leave their homes — officials in Ohio postponed the state’s primary Tuesday — as many at-risk Americans followed the government’s guidance to self-isolate in an effort to slow the spread of the pandemic.
Biden’s victories in Arizona Illinois and Florida did not come as a surprise. The former vice president has consistently led in the polls since his streak of victories in South Carolina and the two Super Tuesday contests — buoyed in part by the fact that more voters trust him to handle a crisis like the current pandemic.
As the delegates piled up for Biden on Tuesday night, CNN estimated that the former vice president would need to win 47% of the remaining delegates in order to win, while Sanders must win 57.9% of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination — a near mathematical impossibility.
Source: CNN
