Wait, are we still doing this thing? Huh, well, I guess we are. But if things in the Democratic primary season were looking pretty done by the end of last Tuesday, they’ll be looking really done by the end of this Tuesday. This week’s primary states are Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, all of which are very populous and award a lot of delegates—especially Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state, which will award 219 pledged delegates.
All of these states are ones that Hillary Clinton won over Bernie Sanders in 2016, against the backdrop of a more closely contested primary than what we’re currently seeing this year, with Illinois being the only one of these four that she won with a single-digit margin. And polls this year show Joe Biden in stronger position this year than Clinton won those states with in 2016, especially in Illinois.
Even if Biden overperforms his already strong polls on Tuesday, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional delegate allocation system, he still will be a number of weeks away from being able to truly clinch a majority of pledged delegates. However, by the time the delegates from Tuesday’s election are allocated, we’ll be over 60% of the way done with the primary process, and there will be very few opportunities left for Sanders to make up much of his deficit (with Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania the only large states remaining).
Keep in mind, though, that the conditions caused by the coronavirus outbreak create a good deal of uncertainty in terms of the administration of these elections, and possibly even the outcomes, depending on which voters, in particular, may be likelier to stay home. For starters, Ohio, which was scheduled to vote today, has now entirely postponed, following an overnight ruling from its state Supreme Court. We’re also hearing about scattered polling places in Illinois being closed for lack of poll workers. At any rate, we’ll almost certainly see lower turnout (except possibly in Arizona, where most voting occurs by mail and many people may have already voted) and possible delays in obtaining results in the remaining states.
7 PM ET
Florida
Delegates: 47 statewide at-large; 29 statewide PLEO; between 3 and 7 delegates in each of the state’s 27 congressional districts (219 pledged delegates total)
Polls: Biden 66, Sanders 24 (weighted average)
The main event of the evening kicks off early, with Florida, where the vast majority of the state closes at 7 PM ET. The westernmost parts of the Florida Panhandle close at 7 PM CT, so based on past precedent there won’t be a call until polls close in Pensacola. However … we’re not really looking at a close race here! 538’s polling average, of this frequently-polled race, give Biden a 66-24 lead over Sanders; by comparison, Hillary Clinton won here in 2016 by a 64-33 margin.
The problem for Sanders here is that Florida is a state that just isn’t demographically primed to go well for him. For starters, Florida, as a popular retirement destination, is one of the oldest states in the nation; it has the highest percentage of people over 65 of any state (though, interestingly, Maine, not Florida, has the highest median age among states, and Sanders stayed competitive there). Florida doesn’t have as high an African American percentage as Deep South states, but it does have a considerably higher black percentage than the nation as a whole.
And while Sanders did quite well with the Latino communities in California and Texas, those were primarily Mexican-American voters; while Florida does have a high percentage of Latino voters, instead the largest bloc among them are Cuban-Americans, who haven’t been very amenable to Sanders, especially after he doubled-down on partial praise for that country’s government. (A similar problem for him that hasn’t gotten as much media attention is that the Miami area also contains growing Venezuelan American and Nicaraguan American populations.)
Central Florida does also have a large and growing Puerto Rican community; while we haven’t seen a large Puerto Rican constituency vote yet in the primaries, it’s likely Sanders can do much better with them than with Cubans. There may also be a few north Florida congressional districts with large university towns—the 3rd and 5th—where Sanders can keep it close, but ultimately those are just blips compared with his likely statewide deficit.
8 PM ET
Illinois
Delegates: 34 statewide at-large; 20 statewide PLEO; between 3 and 8 delegates in each of the state’s 18 congressional districts (155 pledged delegates total)
Polls: Biden 59, Sanders 29 (weighted average)
Illinois was an extremely close race in 2016, with Hillary Clinton winning only 51-49. This year, it’s not looking so close; the polling average gives Biden a nearly 30-point advantage. If you look at a map of the 2016 primary, you see the same pattern as, say, Michigan: Clinton won the big counties of the Chicago area, but Sanders won most of the land mass, winning the vote in the rural red counties downstate. It looks like the loss of the rural “not Hillary” vote for Sanders this year is at least part of the difference, though it doesn’t seem like that by itself would account for a 30-point swing in the polls.
Sanders can probably still do fairly well in some of the downstate Illinois districts, especially the 13th, which contains multiple large universities; he might also have a shot at winning the 4th district, a Chicago district with a Latino majority. (The bulk of the Latino population in Chicago is Mexican American, where Sanders has already shown by can do well in the California and Texas primaries, though there is also a sizable Puerto Rican community in Chicago and we haven’t seen much evidence of how he does with the Puerto Rican vote.) Meanwhile, Biden is likely to run up the score in much of the Chicago area, especially in the 1st, 2nd, and 7th districts, where Chicago’s African American population is concentrated.
9 PM ET
Arizona
Delegates: 14 statewide at-large; 9 statewide PLEO; between 3 and 6 delegates in each of the state’s 9 congressional districts (67 pledged delegates total)
Polls: Biden 57, Sanders 33 (weighted average)
Arizona seems like it’s a state where Sanders could do well, since it has a large Latino population and that’s been one demographic where he’s doing considerably better than he did in 2016. (And the Latinos who live in Arizona are Mexican American, where we know he does well.) However, the polls we’ve seen so far indicate that he’s not doing well in Arizona either—in fact, not really any better than in Illinois or Ohio. As a popular retirement destination, Arizona has a lot of white senior citizens (though they represent a smaller percentage of the overall population as in Florida). And polls of only Arizona’s Latino population have him losing even among that demographic, apparently as part of a broader national shift toward consolidation behind Biden.
Districts where Sanders might do better than average include the 9th district in Phoenix and its close-in suburbs. That includes the university town of Tempe, so a lot of the Phoenix area’s younger voters live there. He might also still be able to overperform in the state’s mostly-Latino districts, the 3rd and 7th districts. Again, though, even in these districts, it’s probably more of a matter of trying to break even than build up any sort of net delegate gain.
Postponed
Ohio
Delegates: 29 statewide at-large; 18 statewide PLEO; between 4 and 9 delegates in each of the state’s 16 congressional districts (136 pledged delegates total)
Polls: Biden 58, Sanders 33 (weighted average)
Again, Ohio is temporarily on hold, until June. If you’re wondering what will happen then, the race may well be entirely over by then, or Biden could have an insurmountable lead by that point. Ohio seems, on paper, like it could be somewhat better for Sanders, as a midwestern state that’s much whiter than the national average. However, Sanders is facing the same problem here that he faced in Michigan last week: he’s not getting the “not Hillary” voters in conservative rural counties with low levels of college education anymore. Those voters, instead, appear to be fine with Biden, at least for purposes of the primary. (On top of that, Ohio, unlike Michigan, didn’t go that well for Sanders even in 2016; while he narrowly won in Michigan, he still lost Ohio by more than 10 points to Clinton.)
One congressional district to watch is Ohio’s 11th congressional district, which links together African American neighborhoods in both Cleveland and Akron. This is both the state’s district with the highest number of delegates (9) and also likely to be Biden’s best district in the state, possibly to the extent of him being the only viable candidate there. Sanders is likelier to do well in the Columbus-area districts, like the 3rd and the 15th (the latter of which also contains the college town of Athens).