Bernie Sanders Wins Colorado Primary, Biden Surges Elsewhere

The polling experts and pundits who predicted a Bernie Sanders victory called this one right: The Vermont senator was declared the winner of Colorado’s Democratic presidential primary with about 36 percent of the vote shortly after polls closed. In early counting, he was followed by former Vice President Joe Biden (23 percent) and former  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (21 percent). Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was projected to have a strong performance in Colorado, lagged in fourth place with 17 percent of the vote.

Around the country though, Sanders—who in early contests looked like the frontrunner to win the nomination—saw his momentum slowed by Biden, who notched key victories across the South in states like North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas, in addition to a major victory in South Carolina on Saturday.

Warren was unable to score victories in any of the 14 states that cast votes on Tuesday, and she even trailed Biden and Sanders in her home state of Massachusetts. Bloomberg, who bet big on Super Tuesday, also failed to win any states (he won the American Samoa caucus), and dropped out of the race early Wednesday morning.

The nationwide Super Tuesday results suggest the Democratic primary is now essentially a two-candidate race between Biden and Sanders. After former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar suspended their campaigns and endorsed Biden, moderate Democrats—particularly in the South—are coalescing behind the former vice president as an alternative to the more-progressive Sanders.

Sanders won the Colorado primary convincingly by vote share, but it is still to be determined how many of the state’s 67 total delegates he will earn. Nationwide, the delegate breakdown may take several days to sort out, which means we still won’t know with certainty which candidate has the most momentum coming out of Super Tuesday. Aside from Colorado, the biggest win for Sen. Sanders was California which had 415 delegates at stake. Biden, however, also notched a win in Texas—all but assuring he will emerge from Super Tuesday as the delegate leader.

The possibility of a brokered Democratic convention is becoming more likely. In fact, according to FiveThirtyEight’s most recent forecasting model, the odds of a contested Democratic Convention are 61 percent, while Biden is shown to have a 31 percent chance of winning the required 1,991 delegates and Sanders is shown to have an 8 percent chance.

In Colorado’s Republican presidential primary, which was considered a foregone conclusion, President Donald Trump won easily with about 93 percent of the vote.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more results are released.