WASHINGTON — Joe Biden is poised to walk away from Tuesday’s primaries with a nearly insurmountable delegate lead over Bernie Sanders after winning Florida and Illinois, according to NBC News projections.
The former vice president now has 286 more delegates than the Vermont senator — 1,068 delegates to Sanders’ 782.
Biden has passed the halfway mark to the 1,991 delegates needed to win a majority of all delegates, and thus capture the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sanders will not address the results Tuesday night, his campaign told NBC News. He spoke earlier on a livestream on his campaign website and focused almost entirely on the coronavirus pandemic, which has overshadowed the latest round of primary contests.
Biden, speaking via livestream from his home, made a clear appeal to Sanders supporters.
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“Senator Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. And together they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country,” Biden said.
Then, Biden spoke directly to the young voters “inspired” by Sanders.
“I hear you, I know what’s at stake, I know what we have to do. Our goal as a campaign and my goal as a candidate for president is to unify this party and then to unify the nation,” said Biden, who exit polls have shown has been running poorly with younger voters.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump on Tuesday night secured the number of delegates he needs to become the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee once again, NBC News projects.
Ohio postponed its primary, which had also been scheduled for Tuesday, until June due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Biden entered the night with an already commanding lead of over 150 delegates after overwhelming Sanders on Super Tuesday and in more recent contests, including a late-breaking victory in Washington that NBC News projected on Monday.
Florida, which has the fourth-largest number of delegates at stake of the entire year, will stretch Biden’s lead, and he could get more out of Arizona, if polls prove accurate. Polls closed in Arizona at 10 p.m. and the race there was too close to call.
The former vice president’s growing delegate lead makes a comeback by Sanders increasingly unlikely as the number of delegate-rich states on the calendar dwindles from this point on.
Because Democrats award delegates proportionally to each candidates’ vote share, Sanders would likely need to win upcoming states by very lopsided margins to catch up to Biden.
Meanwhile, six future contests have so far been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak, including the next two that had been set for later this month, Georgia and Puerto Rico.
The means, after a jam-packed Democratic presidential calendar with election nights every week for almost two months, there is no vote on the books in any states until April 4, when Hawaii, Alaska and Wyoming will weigh in.
Those states are expected to be friendlier territory to Sanders, but don’t offer many delegates. The next big contest is currently scheduled to be held in Wisconsin on April 7.
Shaquille Brewster contributed.