Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday! Keep checking here all night for results from, and pithy commentary on, the fourteen state primaries that are wrapping up. (Click here for the last pre-vote polling by Data for Progress, whose surveys have been heralded for their accuracy thusfar during primary season.)
12:50 a.m.: Hang on, one more thing. It looks like Sanders is going to end up winning Vermont, Colorado, Utah, and California. What do those states have in common? Skiing. Meanwhile, Biden didn’t win any states known for skiing. Makes you think!
12:40 p.m.: Texas is leaning Biden’s way at the moment, and California seems to be headed to Sanders. But neither is fully counted, and I’m tired, so this will be the last update. Biden will probably end up with a delegate lead on Sanders when every vote from Tuesday’s states is counted, but it won’t be a huge lead. Next week Michigan and Washington, which Sanders won in 2016, hold their votes. And in the days between, there will be a lot of fighting among Democrats. Good night!
11:45 p.m.: Oh, Biden won Massachusetts. Elizabeth Warren has sent an email to supporters asking for money to continue funding her campaign, but the media and party pressure on her to drop out tomorrow is going to be significant.
11:20 p.m.: It’s gonna be Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville in an Alabama Senate runoff on March 31. Overtime, if you will. (Because Tuberville was a football coach.)
11:15 p.m.: Well, now—looks like the AP called California for Sanders as soon as polls officially closed, even though there are still people there waiting in line. This could flip around the ol’ narrative depending on the final margin of victory/delegate apportionment, but California counts its votes slowly, so horses will need to be held for now.
11 p.m.: If you’re not a Biden fan and are looking for reasons that he might not be able to ultimately seal the nomination despite his performance tonight, he started his victory speech in Los Angeles by identifying his wife as his sister. (They were both on stage, so it’s not like he forgot who his wife was, but still.)
10:50 p.m.: Sorry for the break there! I spilled a glass of seltzer. Sanders looks to have won Utah, while Biden has locked up the South. Biden’s also looking good in Maine and Massachusetts with about half of votes reported, which would be a non-ideal outcome for Sanders given that he is a crotchety progressive from the Northeast, those adjectives typically having a great deal of appeal for Maine and Massachusetts residents, respectively. Still out: Texas and California, aka “the big ones where all the people live.”
10 p.m.: Virginia is, simply put, blazing and embarrassing all other states in vote-reporting speed. Ninety-nine percent of the tally has been sent in down there in the Horse Farm State (note to self, Google to see if this nickname is right?) compared with 62 percent in North Carolina, 20 percent in Maine, and 16 percent in Massachusetts. Is whatever Virginia does (Google to see what Virginia does and put answer here) the future of voting?
9:50 p.m.: The AP is projecting a Biden win in Minnesota, where he was only in single digits before Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race. The party is consolidating around Uncle Joe out there, folks.
9:40 p.m.: No call yet in the Tuberville-Sessions battle royal yet, by the way. Sanders is being projected to win Colorado, which could be the start of what many people are calling his Big Western Comeback Thing During the Later Half of Super Tuesday.
9: 30 p.m.: Makes sense.
9 p.m.: To take stock of everything that’s happened so far: Biden good, Sanders eh, everyone else bad. Joe B. is sweeping the South and has the very slight edge in the current New York Times projection for Texas, where polls mostly closed at 8 Eastern time. Sanders, however, still may pull out some races in the Northeast and is expected to do well in the West. Elizabeth Warren doesn’t appear to be winning Massachusetts, which means it may be dropout time for her. And Bloomberg is not winning anywhere except American Samoa.
8:50 p.m.: In North Carolina, former Army prosecutor Cal Cunningham—as in, he was a prosecutor in the Army, making him the ultimate purple-state Democratic candidate—is going to win the race to challenge Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Polling is limited, but so far it gives Cunningham a shot.
8:40 p.m.: A little late in getting this up, but it appears that Michael Bloomberg has won American Samoa. Everyone else is making jokes about this, since he is not winning the states like Virginia and North Carolina that he spent huge megamoney in. This is a positive live blog, though, and here you will find nothing but earnest praise for the great job Michael Bloomberg did in winning American Samoa (but not any of the other states where he spent so much money).
8:25 p.m.: This is the upshot for progressive-wing Democrats tonight, so far.
8:10 p.m.: Biden’s getting the calls in Alabama as well. No word yet on that state’s Republican Senate primary, in which Jeff Sessions is trying to fight off former football coach Tommy Tuberville. We will absolutely give you any and all Tuberville updates as soon as we receive them on the red Tuberville Phone in the office.
7:50 p.m.: Multiple networks are calling North Carolina for Biden, which he was expected to win, though the speed of the call is ominous for Sanders.
As to why Biden seems to be doing so well tonight … well, maybe it’s this?
Catch the fever!
7:20 p.m.: Reading Jim Newell’s Super Tuesday preview—interesting stuff! Apparently Sanders is strong in Colorado, Maine, and Utah—three states that, with the exception of Utah, have all held multinight Phish concert events that are remembered fondly by fans. Sadly, Utah has not hosted even a one-off Phish concert since 2003.
7:10 p.m.: Polls just closed in Virginia and Vermont, and pretty much every outlet that does projections is saying that, as expected, Joe Biden won Virginia and Bernie Sanders won Vermont. Analysts believe these results speak to a growing Dave Matthews Band vs. Phish divide in the Democratic Party, which could cause things to “get ugly” at the Democratic National Convention’s traditional hacky-sack kickoff event this summer.
