Though the primary elections taking place Tuesday night were occurring in a much different world than those in recent weeks, the result has been the same: Joe Biden had yet another good night. As voters went to the polls amid the escalating global pandemic and widespread social distancing efforts, the former vice president racked up more primary wins in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona. “Today it looks like once again … our campaign has had a very good night,” Biden said Tuesday night. “We’ve moved closer to securing the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.”
As has been the case in numerous previous primary states, Biden won Tuesday’s states with landslide margins over challenger Senator Bernie Sanders. In Florida, where Sanders performed poorly in 2016 and perhaps turned off many voters with his recent comments praising the Fidel Castro regime, Biden had an expected blowout victory, beating Sanders by a current margin of 62% to 23%. While Sanders performed competitively in Illinois in 2016, narrowly losing to Hillary Clinton by less than two percentage points, the Vermont senator lost the state by a far more overwhelming margin to Biden, who is currently ahead with 59% of the vote. Biden also pulled off an easy win in Arizona despite its large Latino population, which has been a key constituency for Sanders. The former vice president is currently beating Sanders with 43% of the vote to Sanders’ 30%. (Ohio, which was originally supposed to vote Tuesday, postponed their election due to the coronavirus.)
Biden’s wins Tuesday have given the former vice president a nearly insurmountable delegate lead over Sanders in the Democratic primary race. Thanks to his win in delegate-rich Florida, Biden has now passed the halfway mark to the 1,991 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination, and has more than 250 delegates over Sanders. It now looks more unlikely than ever that the Vermont senator could win without earning landslide victories from here on out—something that seems increasingly out of reach as Biden only continues to gain momentum. “We know how this race is going to end now,” political analyst David Axelrod said on CNN Tuesday. “We just don’t know when.” Biden seemed to acknowledge the overwhelming likelihood of his win Tuesday night, as he reached out directly to Sanders’ young base in a bid to start unifying the party. “Let me say especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Senator Sanders: I hear you,” Biden said. “I know what’s at stake. I know what we have to do. Our goal as a campaign, and my goal as a candidate for president, is to unify this party, and then to unify the nation.”
But while Biden’s wins aren’t necessarily anything new in the primary race, they took place Tuesday under unprecedented circumstances, as the election played out while the nation has otherwise come to a halt over the coronavirus crisis. The global pandemic played out at the ballot box, as polling locations attempted to follow social distancing guidelines, faced a shortage of workers, and in some cases closed entirely. Biden and Sanders have been responding to coronavirus on the campaign trail, stopping the face-to-face rallies and interactions that have typically been at the heart of presidential campaigns and addressing the issue by putting forth plans to deal with the unprecedented crisis. Sanders addressed the nation on coronavirus ahead of the polls closing Tuesday evening, calling for the federal government to send $2,000 per month to American households for as long as the crisis lasts. “We can do it. We can address this crisis. We can minimize the pain,” Sanders said Tuesday.