What Went Down In Michigan, Washington And Other Democratic Primaries

One thing I’ll be watching tonight as the results roll in are the gender divides. According to the preliminary exit polls in Mississippi, there was a gender gap in support for Sanders: he got the support of 23 percent of men in Mississippi, but only 18 percent of women. That’s basically what we’ve seen in the primary so far — the size of the gap varies, but Sanders consistently gets more support from men than from women.

Mississippi is an outlier tonight in one way: it’s the only state holding a primary today in which most counties still vote via direct recording electronic devices (D.R.E.s) These machines are one-stop-shops where voters key in their preference on a touchscreen, and their vote is stored on a memory storage device. There is no paper record, which is why election security experts aren’t fans. And D.R.E.s have been known to malfunction, something we saw documented as recently as last summer’s gubernatorial primary runoff:

https://twitter.com/STaylorRayburn/status/1166347828152680449

Mississippi is one of six states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, South Carolina) plus D.C. where the Democratic primary electorate is likely to be majority or plurality black. So Biden has at least three more big wins coming: Georgia on March 24, Louisiana on April 4 and Maryland on April 28.