What Went Down In Michigan, Washington And Other Democratic Primaries

At 8 p.m. Eastern, most of the polls in Michigan closed (although some counties in the Upper Peninsula will continue voting until 9 p.m. Eastern). As of this morning, Biden had a greater than 99 in 100 chance of winning the state. He is forecasted to get 59 percent of the vote and Sanders 35 percent, on average. We expect Sanders to do better than that across most of the state, but Biden should rack up huge margins in Detroit, which falls predominantly in the 13th and 14th districts. Here’s our forecast by congressional district:

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:

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