Key takeaways from election night — and they aren’t good news for Sanders – By Sahil Kapur (NBC News) / March 11 2020
There was little for the senator from Vermont to cheer about in his nomination battle against Biden.
WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders lost his make-or-break state of Michigan and Joe Biden delivered big victories that led Democratic elites to confidently declare him their presumptive nominee, marking a dizzying turnaround after the former vice president began the primaries 0-for-3.
Biden won Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri and Idaho, according to NBC News projections. Winners in Washington and North Dakota had not yet been declared as of 1:35 a.m. ET, but Sanders appeared to be underperforming compared to the huge victories he scored in those states in his unsuccessful campaign in 2016. Biden also expanded his already substantial lead in delegates.
Here are five takeaways from a pivotal night in the 2020 election.
1. Sanders’ theory of the case fell short. Again.
Sanders’ prospects hinged on young progressives’ turning out in droves to overwhelm their older moderate-leaning counterparts. That didn’t happen on Super Tuesday, and it didn’t happen on “Super Tuesday II,” either.
The key dividing line in the primary season has been age, with millennials and Gen Z voters overwhelmingly backing Sanders, while older generations flock to Biden.
Meanwhile, Biden’s strategy never looked more correct — Twitter isn’t real life, the young and online left isn’t representative, and Democratic voters are ultimately more pragmatic than ideological. There hasn’t been a progressive revolution for change; there has been a suburban revolution for normalcy.
Voters under 30 dipped as a share of the electorate compared to 2016, including in Michigan and Missouri, two key victories for Biden, according to NBC News exit polls. In Livingston County in the Detroit area, one of the wealthiest counties in Michigan, turnout surged from over 17,000 in 2016 to more than 27,000 in 2020. Biden won it by 17 points.
Continue to article: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/key-takeaways-election-night-they-aren-t-good-news-sanders-n1155196
