Democratic Primaries

For all intents and purposes, former Vice President Joe Biden is now the presumptive nominee. He has amassed a more or less insurmountable lead in the pledged delegate count, 1,201 to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 888, according to ABC News. And he’s done it by winning places Sanders won handily in 2016 and even overperforming Hillary Clinton in some areas she won four years ago.

In fact, Biden finished first in 93 percent of the counties that Clinton won in 2016. On top of that, he won 83 percent of the counties that Sanders carried in 2016, meaning that Sanders held onto very little of what he won last time around. These gains were especially apparent once Biden and Sanders moved into the head-to-head portion of the race, starting with the primaries on March 10.2 In the six states that voted on March 10 or later — Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi and Missouri — Sanders won about half of all counties in those states in 2016, but just three in 2020. Although Sanders did win some places that Clinton carried in 2016, he gained relatively little ground outside of California and Texas, and Sanders’s additions in Texas weren’t enough to help him