Now that Super Tuesday is over and Biden has jumped to the front of the race (Delegate count is 566, Bernie is at 501, all others at 128 combined) the next batch of states hold key influence in deciding who becomes the nominee. The following states will hold primaries between now and March 17th:
Michigan (125)
Missouri (68)
Washington (89)
Arizona (67)
Florida (219)
Illinois (155)
Ohio (136)
Other states will also vote, but the 7 listed above are the only ones where more than 50 delegates each are up for grabs, meaning that they are the states that actually matter..... These 7 states combined have about 860 delegates up for grabs.... Not as much as the 1357 delegates that were available on Super Tuesday, but its the next closest thing and is still gigantic in size and scope.
Michigan: Biden leads Sanders 29%-23%, but Bloomberg who has dropped out and endorsed Biden held 11% in recent days, which mostly will add to Biden's numbers. Warren hovering south of 7% so even if she drops out and endorses Bernie, Michigan is leaning Biden https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/mi/michigan_democratic_presidential_primary-6835.html
Missouri: Only available polling back in late January had Biden at 39%, Bloomberg at 14%, Warren at 9%, and Sanders at 7% https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/mo/missouri_democratic_primary-6930.html Given Bloombergs endorsement of Biden and the shockingly low numbers from Warren and Bernie in the state as of now, one can conclude that Missouri is leaning heavily toward Biden
Washington: Bernie does really well in the western states so a win here normally would sound expected. Last polls showed Bernie at 21% while Biden was closer to 10%, but Bloomberg had 15% in the state and has withdrawn. If Biden keeps up the momentum from the conquest of Super Tuesday, he may be able to snatch the state away from Sanders. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/wa/washington_democratic_primary-7005.html Admittedly, Sanders THRASHED Hillary in Washington in 2016 (71% to 27%) so Bernie still has to be considered the frontrunner in the state regardless of how much of a boost Biden has going into the state.
Arizona: Last polls to come out of Arizona were back in fucking November so we are flying blind here. In 2016 though Hillary won the state with a healthy margin of 56% to 41% over Bernie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Late_March_and_early_April so if we follow the pattern that Biden will do well in states Hillary did well in then he could probably clinch Arizona.
Florida: This will be an ass whipping. Biden had 34% of the vote just a week ago while Sanders only had 13%. Bloomberg, at 25% support, now out of the picture will almost certainly add most of that to Bidens count by the time the primary rolls around. Biden will win this state, easily, the question is now will Sanders do shitty enough to not even hit the 15% threshhold in the state. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/fl/florida_democratic_presidential_primary-6847.html
Illinois: This is a state with a lot in common with Washington in terms of how it can go. Sanders leads with 22%, but Bloomberg was at 17% while Biden was at 14%. If Biden absorbs much of Bloombergs base following his exit from the campaign, Biden could situate himself to win the state. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/il/illinois_democratic_primary-7036.html A look back at 2016 showed Hillary eeking out a win here 50% to 49%, Bernies odds of winning this state are better than his odds at winning others
Ohio: The last big state up for grabs before late March is Ohio, which has only seen one poll cover the state since October https://www.bw.edu/Assets/community-research-institute/2020-great-lakes-poll-full-FINAL.pdf Scroll to page 12 and you see that most Ohio voters would choose Biden first with 32% of the vote, while Sanders was down near 21%. In 2016 Hillary carried the state 57% to 43%, so its forseeabe that Biden will get a win here.
Of these 7 massive states, Bernie has decent odds of winning just two of them: Illinois and Washington, and thats only under the massive assumption that Biden doesnt absorb the base Bloomberg has recently forfeited....
Biden on the other hand will almost certainly win Florida and Missouri, and has decent odds of also carrying Ohio and Michigan.
The biggest tossups at the moment are Arizona (due to the complete lack of polling) and Illinois (looking tight) Since both candidates will likely get at least 15% in those states though any win by a razor thin margin will not provide much wiggle room for one candidate to pull away from another, since other smaller states such as Mississippi, Idaho, or even North Dakota could erode any gains made by one side.
If Bernie cant turn his campaign around and become more competitive in other states, then the states that will vote some time over the next two weeks will effectively hand Biden the nomination, due to their size, delegate count, and polling that seems to favor Biden who has just come off of a massive Super Tuesday win + consolidation of the moderate vote behind him.
