As David noted below, we’re in touch with several readers who live near the assisted living facility which appears to be the main epicenter of the outbreak in Washington state. One reader has generally high marks for local authorities, others more skeptical reports. All are concerned about the schools, both for the welfare of children and as a potential vector for the spread of the disease. People find themselves having ambiguous symptoms that might be signs of the virus but could just as easily be the kinds of mild colds we generally ignore every winter. The one common refrain is the lack of information and unclarity about just what you’re supposed to do.
8:00: Nets immediately call Alabama for Biden – not a surprise there. Large African-American Democratic electorate. Again, immediate call means sizable win. CNN is calling Massachusetts, Maine and Oklahoma took close to call. In the first, Warren, Sanders and Biden. In the latter two Sanders and Biden in contention.
7:49 PM: Van Jones on CNN a short time ago made a good point. There are lots of Democrats, especially Biden supporters, who are ecstatic tonight. The big prizes are Texas and California. But these early states are going really beyond any realistic expectations Biden’s campaign could have had. But there’s at least a big chunk of Democrats who are experiencing a harsh, harsh reversal of fortune tonight.
Obviously it’s not like Sanders’ campaign is over. There’s a good chance he could still end up with most delegates tonight. But whoever wins the nomination it will be critical for the winners to craft a story that makes it possible for losers to come on board. Some of you will say that the Sanders campaign has shown little inclination to do that over recent weeks. I agree. But that doesn’t matter. Life isn’t fair. The winner will have to do that.
7:31 PM: Networks immediately call North Carolina for Biden. Again, immediate call suggests a sizable win.
7:04 PM: CNN calls Virginia for Biden right out of the gate. Immediate call suggests a big win. Vermont equally fast to Sanders. But Virginia is a much larger state. And it was considered up for grabs only a few days ago.
We’ve got a Super Tuesday to make sense of. So let’s do this. The first states are about to report. We have live election results from every state as well as our staff live blog here. You can also see the live results to the lower right on our front page.
TPM Reader JV offers a view from white collar Seattle:
Hi Josh, thought I’d provide a few anecdotes on how corporate Seattle as a whole is handling the COVID-19 situation. Read More
Pausing on reader emails from Seattle for this dispatch from TPM Reader BP in Nashville:
JoinJust wanted to give a heads up on how things are going here in Nashville after last night’s tornado. My home is two miles from the path, so the only issue I have is no power. Besides all the damage and deaths that have been reported, several voting precincts were either damaged, without power, or not reachable. My precinct had no power.
A longtime reader who is a CEO in tech manufacturing describes the knock-on effects of COVID-19:
The disruption to our supply chain is … just bewildering. It may be that it is massive. It may be that it is just bizarre? But at the moment, there is just confusion.
Read More
11:06 PM: I’m certainly not the first to say this but it remains remarkable how clearly support for Biden and Sanders comes down to key demographic groups. African Americans have been critical to Biden. Hispanic voters are a big strength for Sanders. Biden absolutely dominating in the Mid-Atlantic and the South and doing well in New England. Sanders winning big in the West. Seemingly decisively in California and ahead, though not by a big margin, in Texas.
11:04 PM: California appears to go Sanders. Pretty certain he wins it though not all the networks are calling it. Exit polls show Sanders winning California’s Hispanic voters by a big big margin.
9:29 PM: Just to bring us up to date, Joe Biden is having a night way beyond almost anyone’s expectations. Huge wins in Virginia, North Carolina and a bunch of Southern states. Biden at least for now is holding leads in Minnesota and Massachusetts. But it’s a much tighter race in Texas – with Sanders holding on to a lead. Sanders has a win in Colorado … California remains the big, big prize. The win in Colorado and the lead in Texas suggests that California is not going to get whipsawed in some Biden surge. But we don’t know. Dramatically different picture than what people assumed a week ago.
To state the obvious: Joe Biden now has to be the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Once he showed that he could win a primary, Democratic voters concerned above all about winning in the fall flocked to him; and Bernie Sanders is basically too radical for most of the Cold War-era voters over 40 or 45 years old. Of course, nothing is certain in politics these days, but if Biden’s lead holds up, what does that mean for the future of the Democratic Party? Read More
I’ve written a few times that my greatest fear of a Sanders general election campaign is that it would be one half against Donald Trump and one half against the Democratic party itself. The results last night help us understand some of these liabilities and dynamics. Insurgent candidacies and movements have certain enduring, inherent qualities. The simplest is the belief that there’s something wrong, outdated or corrupt about the organizational leadership you’re trying to overthrow. That’s obvious. Otherwise, why are you an insurgent?
Sanders is a twofold political figure. He’s been a federal legislator for a quarter century operating within the conventional political system. He’s also been a left activist for almost 60 years. That oppositionist mentality is deep in his political DNA and that of his campaign. It’s one of its core strengths. It’s magnified among his most vocal supporters.
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Billions can’t buy you delegates.
JoinYesterday a number of major news organizations (including the Post, CNBC and others) reported that the WHO had released a new COVID-19 mortality rate of 3.4% which was significantly higher than earlier estimates.
As reported, this new information was at least significantly misleading.