Wait, are we still doing this thing? Huh, well, I guess we are. But if things in the Democratic primary season were looking pretty done by the end of last Tuesday, they’ll be looking really done by the end of this Tuesday. This week’s primary states are Arizona, Florida, and Illinois, all of which are very populous and award a lot of delegates—especially Florida, the nation’s third-most populous state, which will award 219 pledged delegates.
All of these states are ones that Hillary Clinton won over Bernie Sanders in 2016, against the backdrop of a more closely contested primary than what we’re currently seeing this year, with Illinois being the only one of these four that she won with a single-digit margin. And polls this year show Joe Biden in stronger position this year than Clinton won those states with in 2016, especially in Illinois.
Even if Biden overperforms his already strong polls on Tuesday, thanks to the Democrats’ proportional delegate allocation system, he still will be a number of weeks away from being able to truly clinch a majority of pledged delegates. However, by the time the delegates from Tuesday’s election are allocated, we’ll be over 60% of the way done with the primary process, and there will be very few opportunities left for Sanders to make up much of his deficit (with Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania the only large states remaining).
Keep in mind, though, that the conditions caused by the coronavirus outbreak create a good deal of uncertainty in terms of the administration of these elections, and possibly even the outcomes, depending on which voters, in particular, may be likelier to stay home. For starters, Ohio, which was scheduled to vote today, has now entirely postponed, following an overnight ruling from its state Supreme Court. We’re also hearing about scattered polling places in Illinois being closed for lack of poll workers. At any rate, we’ll almost certainly see lower turnout (except possibly in Arizona, where most voting occurs by mail and many people may have already voted) and possible delays in obtaining results in the remaining states.