Joe Biden handily defeated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in Florida’s primary vote, walking away with at least 130 delegates and a supermajority in the popular vote. He will likely take Illinois as well, based on projections.
With over 91 percent of the results reported in Florida on Tuesday night, Biden’s smash victory left him with twice as many delegates as the socialist stalwart, and more than 61 percent of the popular vote, further cementing his front-runner status.
In Illinois, with just over a third of the votes tallied, Biden has secured a strong lead over Sanders, already taking 93 delegates to the senator’s 46, along with over 58 percent of the popular vote.
The Democratic primary contests come as the country is deeply distracted by the raging coronavirus pandemic gripping much of the globe, with the elections struggling to make it into Twitter’s top 10 trends and abnormally low voter turnouts reported in both states. While Illinois, Florida and Arizona went ahead with their primaries on Tuesday, Ohio’s was abruptly postponed in an effort to contain the fast-moving illness. As voters hit the polls, Florida confirmed a total of 216 cases of the virus in the state, while Illinois enlisted the National Guard to help manage the outbreak.
Meanwhile, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who despite low polling numbers remains in the race, won only a fraction of a percent of the popular vote in either state, and zero delegates.
Though he dropped out of the race after a dismal showing on Super Tuesday, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg managed to take a distant third behind Biden and Sanders in Florida thanks to early ballots, winning over 8 percent of the state’s vote. In Illinois, meanwhile, he scored fourth, but nearly tied with fellow dropout Elizabeth Warren with just over 9,000 votes, or 1.4 percent of the total.
