- On March 10, six states will hold Democratic primaries and caucuses, accounting for about 9% of all delegates allocated throughout the process.
- Polls in most of Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, and North Dakota just closed at 8 p.m. ET, polls in Idaho will close at 8 p.m. local time and 10 p.m. ET, and Washington votes by mail.
- We'll have up-to-the-minute live vote counts and results happening in real-time updating automatically.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
We'll start getting the first results starting now at 7 p.m. Central Time and 8 p.m. Eastern Time — follow along here.
Democratic primary results:
Catch up on live coverage from the primary:
Primary:
- Biden gets his first big victories of the night in the Mississippi and Missouri Democratic primaries
- Coronavirus prompts Biden and Sanders to scrap rally plans — Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden cancel election night rallies in Ohio over coronavirus concerns
Pre-primary:
- Joe Biden gets away with yelling at voters, and may even benefit from it
- POLL: Biden shattered Bernie's momentum, with skeptical Democrats increasingly satisfied with Biden as nominee
- The Michigan primary is Bernie Sanders' last chance to show he has a shot at becoming president
- Here's who Joe Biden is reportedly considering for top positions in his administration as he touts a 'Return to Normal' plan
- Candidates who've dropped out of the presidential race are endorsing either Biden or Sanders. Here's whose side they're on and why.
- 6 states have 2020 primary elections on Tuesday. Here's what they're doing to protect voters in light of the new coronavirus outbreak.
- 15 maps show how much worse Bernie Sanders fared in the 2020 Super Tuesday primaries compared with 2016
Here's how Democrats will elect their presidential nominee over the next several months
What's at stake in the primary?
The six states that vote today collectively allocate 352 delegates to the convention, making up about 9% of all delegates awarded throughout the Democratic primary contest.
- Michigan allocates 125 pledged delegates to the convention, making up 3.5% of the total allocated throughout the process. Polls close in most of the state of 8 p.m. ET. In four of Michigan's Upper Peninsula counties located in the Central Time Zone, polls close at 8 p.m. Central and 9 p.m. ET.
- Mississippi allocates 36 pledged delegates to the convention. Polls closed at 7 p.m. local time and 8 p.m. ET.
- North Dakota allocates 14 pledged delegates to the convention. Polls in the state's Firehouse Caucuses close at 7 p.m. Central time and 8 p.m. ET.
- Missouri allocates 68 pledged delegates to the convention. Polls closed at 7 p.m. local time and 8 p.m. ET.
- Idaho allocates 20 pledged delegates to the convention. Polls close at 8 p.m. local time, 10 p.m. ET.
- Washington, which allocates 89 pledged delegates to the convention, conducts its elections entirely by mail. Voters must either mail in a ballot postmarked by election day or drop off their ballot in person in their county elections office no later than 8 p.m. local time on the day of the election.
Democrats allocate most of their pledged delegates proportionally by legislative district, in addition to allocating at-large and PLEO (party leader and elected official) delegates based on the statewide vote breakdown.
While delegates are allocated proportionally, in nearly every state the minimum threshold to earn delegates is 15% of the vote. This means candidates must break 15% of the vote at either the congressional district or state level to earn any delegates.
Now that the race is narrowed down to just two major candidates, both former VP Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders are now likely to both pass the delegate threshold in the upcoming states.
Today's primaries come a week after Biden's blowout victory on Super Tuesday, in which he won ten out of the day's sixteen electoral contests outright and far surpassed Sanders in national pledged delegates.
With Biden now projected to win key states with significant African-American populations like Mississippi and Missouri, Sanders needs to turn things around immediately to still have a shot at clinching the nomination, starting with today's primaries.
DELEGATE COUNT: Here's who's winning the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination
Who does the polling say is ahead?
FiveThirtyEight's average of the latest polling data shows Biden significantly advantaged in several key states voting today, including ones that Sanders handily carried in 2016.
The day before the election, Data for Progress released polls showing Biden leading Sanders by a massive margin of 77% to 22% among likely Mississippi Democratic primary voters, and also ahead by four percentage points in Idaho, where the former VP holds the support of 51% of likely Idaho Democratic primary voters compared to 47% backing Sanders.
Biden also leads the latest polls by huge double-digit margins in Michigan and Missouri, two states Sanders either narrowly beat or lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by margins of two percentage points or less.
In Washington state, where Sanders beat Clinton by a margin of 45 percentage points in the state's 2016 caucuses, Biden also narrowly leads the most recent polls going into tonight's primaries.
While isn't any recent polling data from North Dakota, FiveThirtyEight's primary election forecast uses other factors including the results of this year's primary so far, previous presidential primaries, candidates' fundraising performance and elite support, and individuals states' voting histories and demographic compositions to project which candidates are likely to win each state.
According to FiveThirtyEight's forecast, Biden is projected to win the most pledged delegates in all six states voting today. Biden has the greatest odds of winning Michigan, Missouri, and Mississippi, and is also projected to win the most delegates in Idaho, North Dakota, and Washington.
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