- Former VP Joe Biden dominated Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary, delivering a potentially fatal blow to the Vermont senator's campaign.
- Michigan had 125 delegates on the table, so winning there gives Biden a huge lead over Sanders after a successful Super Tuesday.
- Losing in Michigan is also a symbolic defeat for Sanders, who won a narrow, stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in the Midwestern state four years ago.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden wiped the floor with Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Michigan Democratic primary, which could spell the end of the Vermont senator's campaign.
With over one million votes counted, Biden had a roughly 13% lead over Sanders. It's a huge victory in a state Sanders won four years ago. In short, it was a rout.
After underwhelming results on Super Tuesday, which saw Biden gain a sizeable lead in delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination, Sanders really needed a victory in the Midwestern state.
Biden is now heading into a series of crucial primaries on March 17 with all of the momentum behind him, and Sanders left in the dust. The former vice president also dominated Sanders in Missouri and Mississippi on Tuesday.
Michigan had the most delegates up for grabs (125) out of half a dozen states that held voting contests on Tuesday. Winning there would've given Sanders a major boost, particularly with two neighboring states (Ohio and Illinois) voting on the 17th.
Sanders won a narrow, stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in Michigan in 2016. It was a defining moment for his underdog campaign. Michigan is a state with a large population of the blue collar workers Sanders has pegged himself as the champion of for years. Losing there is not only a potentially fatal blow to Sanders mathematically, it's a massive symbolic defeat as well.
Candidates need 1,991 pledged delegates to win the 2020 nomination. There are 577 delegates on the table on March 17 in four contests:
- Arizona: 67 pledged delegates
- Florida: 219 pledged delegates
- Illinois: 155 pledged delegates
- Ohio: 136 pledged delegates
Biden has a double-digit lead over Sanders in every single state voting next Tuesday, according to FiveThirtyEight's average of recent polling. With that said, if things go as they're expected to, Biden could be the presumptive Democratic nominee by next week. Michigan could've been a turning point for Sanders, but instead it dealt a potentially fatal blow to his 2020 campaign.
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