Super Tuesday States: A Look at Six Key Battlegrounds – The New York Times

Fourteen states held primary elections in today’s Super Tuesday contests, including the two that award the most delegates, California and Texas, as well as a number of critical general-election swing states. Here’s a look at six of the most interesting battlegrounds.

In 2016, California proved to be something of a firewall for Hillary Clinton, who beat Bernie Sanders with 53 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That year, the state voted in June, when the primary race was all but over.

This year, voters went to the polls with the race in flux, and it was Mr. Sanders who was hoping that California would prove to be his own firewall.

On Tuesday, California was one of the few states to come through for Mr. Sanders, who won the state, according to The Associated Press.

Recent polls had consistently shown him with a comfortable lead over his rivals, fueled in part by strong support from young Latinos. But many voters told pollsters they were waiting for results in early states before deciding who to vote for, and this week’s batch of prominent endorsements for the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., could still lift him late in the state, which is home to many moderate suburban voters.

No other candidate came close to spending as much money as Michael R. Bloomberg poured into the state, as he blanketed the airwaves for weeks on both English and Spanish television stations.

Inequality has long been the most pressing issue in the state, and one Mr. Sanders frequently tapped into. The question was whether that message would give him a majority of the state’s 415 pledged delegates, Super Tuesday’s biggest prize.

The primary was also an early indicator of the strength of Democrats who flipped Republican congressional districts in 2018, particularly in Orange County and the Central Valley. Several Republicans were running in rematches against Democrats, including Darrell Issa, David Valadao and Young Kim.

In 2016, California proved to be something of a firewall for Hillary Clinton, who beat Bernie Sanders with 53 percent of the vote to his 46 percent. That year, the state voted in June, when the primary race was all but over.

With its enormous trove of delegates, California may have drawn the most attention in the run-up to Super Tuesday. But Texas was also extremely important, and Mr. Biden prevailed in the state, beating Mr. Sanders in a tight race.

At stake in Texas were 228 delegates — the third-largest number in any state and the second largest on Super Tuesday.

In general, polling averages had showed Mr. Sanders in the lead with about 30 percent support — a tick lower than the 33 percent support he earned in what was essentially a two-way contest with Mrs. Clinton in 2016. Mr. Sanders thought winning Texas was important enough that he spent the day of the Nevada caucuses in El Paso and San Antonio. He was also hoping to draw support from the state’s large Latino population, a group he has performed well with in early voting states.

Mr. Biden was lurking in second, around six percentage points behind Mr. Sanders. Texas’ Democratic electorate leans more moderate than solidly liberal California, and that may have provided him with an advantage.

Texas has been a solidly red state that has been edging closer to purple in recent years. It was too early to say early Wednesday whether the results and turnout on Tuesday made the case either that the Democratic hype is real or that the Republican statewide grip remains firm. In the 10-day early-voting period leading up to Super Tuesday, Democratic turnout exceeded that of 2016, as more than one million Democrats voted in person and by mail.

One crucial question for North Carolina on Tuesday was how much enthusiasm and momentum for Mr. Biden would spill over from neighboring South Carolina, where the former vice president’s big primary victory on Saturday was powered by strong African-American support.

The answer was a lot. Mr. Biden won the state easily on Tuesday.

A High Point University poll released Monday showed Mr. Sanders with 31 percent support and Mr. Bloomberg in second with 18 percent. But the poll was conducted in the week before Mr. Biden’s decisive win in South Carolina. On Monday, a FiveThirtyEight average of polls had Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders in a near tie with around 24 percent support each (and Mr. Biden slightly ahead), and Mr. Bloomberg with about 16 percent.

Though Mr. Sanders lost the North Carolina Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton in 2016, the Vermont senator managed to win nearly 41 percent of the vote, giving him a 47-delegate haul — his best showing by delegate count in the southeast that year, with the exception of Florida.

Four years ago, Mr. Sanders dominated in Orange County, home to progressive bastions like Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and Buncombe County, home to Asheville, the attractive mountain city full of New Age seekers and liberal northern transplants. J. Michael Bitzer, a professor of political science at Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., said he would be watching places like Durham and Mecklenburg counties Tuesday to gauge Mr. Sanders’s chances of victory. “If he’s going after the youth vote and the more progressive vote, it’s going to come out of those university counties,” Dr. Bitzer said.

North Carolina Democrats on Tuesday selected Cal Cunningham, an Army veteran and former state legislator, as their nominee to try to unseat Republican Senator Thom Tillis in what will be one of the country’s most fiercely contested Senate races. Democrats will almost certainly need to win North Carolina in November if they have a shot at reclaiming control of the Senate for the first time in six years. Public and private polling in recent days suggests that Mr. Cunningham and Mr. Tillis are running neck and neck.

Mr. Biden quickly emerged as the dominant winner in Virginia, which had one of the largest delegate hauls available on Super Tuesday.

With nearly all precincts reporting, he had more than double the votes of Mr. Sanders, and exit polls showed him performing very well among black voters. His strong showing was attributable in part to the exit of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar from the race. Both polled well with moderate suburban voters, a crucial bloc in Virginia.

No state has swung more decisively to the Democrats in the Trump era than this one, where Republicans were thrown out of office in three successive election years in a scathing referendum on the president.

The presidential primary on Tuesday was a test of whether that energy has been driven primarily by progressives or moderates. Mr. Sanders campaigned hard in the state last week, with large rallies of his youth-skewing supporters in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Virginia Beach.

Mr. Biden also visited in recent days, scooping up endorsements from elected Democrats, a trend that picked up speed after his South Carolina victory on Saturday. Terry McAuliffe, the former governor and perhaps the most influential Democrat in the state, came off the sidelines for Mr. Biden late Saturday. He joined Senator Tim Kaine, two congresswomen who flipped Republican seats in 2018 and a slew of state lawmakers.

Mr. Bloomberg had been counting on a return on the enormous investment in Virginia state politics he has made in recent years, more than $10 million to elect Democrats at every level. The largess included donations to 22 state races from his gun-control group, Everytown for Gun Safety. Gun control was a top issue in the 2019 elections when Democrats took over both legislative chambers for the first time in a generation. One beneficiary, Delegate Nancy Guy of Virginia Beach, who won her race by just 27 votes, is among three state lawmakers who endorsed Mr. Bloomberg.

A Bloomberg environmental group, Beyond Carbon, spent $348,000 on behalf of Ms. Guy’s race last year. Mr. Bloomberg made his eighth visit to the state on Monday since announcing his candidacy, stopping at one of his seven field offices. He had this to say about Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar dropping out: “I thought both of them behaved themselves.’’

There were no down-ballot races in Virginia on Tuesday.

The Democratic primary in Massachusetts was an enormous test for Ms. Warren, who once expected to run away with it easily: It is, after all, her home state.

Mr. Sanders, a neighboring state senator, had also counted on a good result, gaining in the polls as Ms. Warren slipped.

But it was Mr. Biden who emerged victorious on Tuesday night in a close three-way race, dealing a blow to his rivals, especially Ms. Warren, who was in third as results continued to arrive.

Polls in Massachusetts had shown Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren jostling for the top spot. But those surveys were conducted before Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar dropped out and endorsed Mr. Biden, a move that narrowed the moderate lane and could have provided him a decisive lift.

The apparent disappointing finish for Ms. Warren revealed a harsh reality: If she cannot win her home state, it becomes very difficult for her to continue to argue for her viability.

There will be interesting down-ballot races to watch for in September. The main one is the Senate contest between the incumbent, Edward J. Markey, and Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III — arguably the biggest Senate primary in the country.

This is more of a generational clash than an ideological one: Both men have progressive records, but Mr. Markey is 73 and Mr. Kennedy — a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy — is 39. Mr. Kennedy’s decision to run for Senate leaves his House seat in the Fourth District open, and a crowded field of Democrats are running for it.

The Democratic primary in Massachusetts was an enormous test for Ms. Warren, who once expected to run away with it easily: It is, after all, her home state.

But as results arrived on Tuesday night, they showed a close three-way race between her, Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders — a good sign for Mr. Biden, and a worrisome one for Mr. Sanders and Ms. Warren.

Minnesota had seemed like a ripe opportunity for Mr. Sanders.

He had been competing closely with Ms. Klobuchar in her home state, and her departure from the race this week had seemed to clear the way for him to claim a significant delegate haul.

But in a surprise turn of events, Mr. Biden scored an upset victory in Minnesota, helped by Ms. Klobuchar’s endorsement of him as she ended her own bid. Her campaign deployed volunteers and organizers around the state on Tuesday to get out the vote for Mr. Biden.

Four years ago, Mr. Sanders had cruised to an upstart victory in Minnesota, a much-needed win for the Vermont senator to keep pace with Mrs. Clinton on a day she jumped out to a significant delegate lead.

The state’s progressive base, which helped elect Representative Ilhan Omar in 2018, had been loyal to Mr. Sanders, and his campaign had hoped to win a big share of the state’s 75 delegates.

But Ms. Klobuchar is immensely popular in her home state, and recent polling showed her maintaining a slim lead over Mr. Sanders. With her exit, large parts of that support appeared to have shifted to Mr. Biden.

The results were also disappointing for Mr. Bloomberg, who spent more than $10 million on ads in the state, according to Advertising Analytics, in an effort to amass delegates in some of the more rural and ignored congressional districts. Though he remained in the low single digits in statewide polls, Mr. Bloomberg had been the sole political advertiser in some markets.

Minnesota has been reliably blue for decades, and was the only state to go for a Democrat in 1984 thanks to the home-state candidate, Walter Mondale, but the 2016 election showed a Republican surge, as Mrs. Clinton eked out a victory over President Trump by just 45,000 votes. The president’s re-election campaign has been focused on the state, including holding a rally there in October.