What Went Down On Super Tuesday

Well, you’ve got some Sanders savagery from Warren supporters. But I think there’s a lot of truth to this: Sanders was in a really good position just a week ago — I believe we called the race “his to lose.” And now he’s in a real bind thanks to the dropouts of moderate candidates and a coalescing around Biden.

I’m thinking that I personally have focused too much on race/ideology/age and not enough on region in this primary. Sanders did terribly in the South in 2016. And it seems like he is doing poorly in the South in 2020, based on what we know about Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. And part of that story is about race (lots of black voters in these states, and they have backed Clinton/Biden). But the Virginia and North Carolina exit polls tonight suggest he is losing the Southern white vote in those states too.

It’ll be awhile before we know what’s happening in Tennessee, but our forecast pegs Biden as the favorite in Tennessee with about a 2 in 3 (68 percent) chance of winning statewide, though Sanders also has a real shot at finishing first, with a 1 in 4 (25 percent) chance. Biden has a forecasted statewide vote of 34 percent, on average, ahead of Sanders’s 27 percent. But the results by congressional district will also matter for delegate allocation purposes, and unlike in some of the other Southern states, Biden’s and Sanders’s vote shares are neck-and-neck in some districts, with Sanders even leading in a few. Here is our forecasted vote share for each candidate in each district: