Bang a gong, it’s on: the fight for the soul of the Democrat party is on in earnest tonight — especially if Biden takes Texas. Top four things I’m watching: turnout (enthusiasm), exit data, purple districts and states, how Biden and Sanders performance compare.

I’ll post Super Tuesday results and trends here ahead of tomorrow’s broadcast. Newest updates will appear below.

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– Fox News projects Biden to win Virginia at 6pmCT. Biden just crushed Sanders in this — with over half of the precincts reporting

This is true. Bloomberg spent millions upon millions to only slip further in the polls (the polls in which he had any viability, anyway).

Meanwhile, the Biden VA win is official. Biden led a pretty healthy lead against Sanders.

Sanders wins Vermont:

– The state I’m watching is Texas. Sanders’s lead is minuscule against Biden here (1.5%). I wouldn’t be surprised at either Biden or Sanders winning this state. Biden needs the delegates more and with 261 delegates at stake, if Bernie wins a majority he may prove unstoppable. Texas is not a winner-take-all state; delegates are awarded based on who takes 15% or more of the vote in various districts (a primer on how it works here).

– Remember — California is new to Super Tuesday and could dramatically affect the outcome (i.e. make evident who is getting on the ballot first round at the DNC).

– 6:30pmCT … Turnout in NC is expected to surpass 2016 (it did not in Iowa and Nevada.) This may bode well for Biden, who leads Sanders in the state polls. Only three candidates made the 15% threshold to take delegates in this state, Bloomberg is the third after spending millions but he’s barely hanging on. The real competition is between Biden and Sanders.

– 6:55pmCT Biden takes North Carolina.

– Warren is siphoning votes away from Bernie in a few states … was that the plan? Makes sense … I’ll deep dive with this tomorrow on the program.

– 7pmCT Biden wins Alabama — he now has a streak along with VA, AL, NC.

– 7:22pmCT Biden is currently leading in delegates, 157 to Sanders’s 91.

– 7:27pmCT Sanders wins Vermont.

Warren is causing problems for Biden and Sanders in MA. She’s been reduced to a foil from a contender. She is finished in this primary.

Fun fact:

Forgot to add, Michael Bloomberg spent eleventy frillion dollars and …

He’s won no where else.

– TEXAS: Less than 1% in and Sanders is leading Biden … Travis County is in this mix, and for non-Texans, that includes Austin, for your perspective.

Dem tactics? Remember Obama v Clinton in 2008?

– Money, money, money:

– As we wait for numbers, check out this gem. Pete tries to cowboy up that accent in Dallas:

– Rock the Vote is still irrelevant:

– 7:50pmCT Texas is reporting. Biden and Sanders are going to duke it out; Warren is hurting Sanders.

– 8:oopmCT Sanders wins Colorado while Biden wins Oklahoma. As predicted, Biden is sweeping the southern states. While Warren is blunting Sanders’s edge, Klobuchar and Buttigieg’s absences are boosting Biden.

– HAHAHAHAHAHA: Warren indicates that she is not dropping out Tuesday night cbsn.ws/38lrNC0

– TEXAS: Biden is performing well with minority voters if you go by exit poll data. With 23% of the precincts reporting reporting Sanders is currently leading Biden by nearly 7%. Biden is also taking the older voters compared to Sanders’s younger voting block. Sanders’s strength is consolidated in the 18-24 demo (72%) compared to Biden’s relatively split between the 45-64 demo and the 65+ demo (45% and 46% respectively). The youth vote turnout is very low, however.

Fox is calling it early for Sanders. Out of spite I’m hanging back.

– 8:30pmCT Biden currently leading in Minnesota, thanks in no small part to Klobuchar’s support


– Pledged delegate count.

– Bloomberg is Biden’s foil and Warren is Sanders’s foil. This is better than Netflix tonight.

– 8:38PMCT  Currently:

– TEXAS: Interesting note — Pierce Bush, grandson of George H.W. Bush and cousin to George P. Bush, the TX Land Commissioner) will see his campaign end tonight leaving George P. as the sole Bush in office. Backstory here.

– Biden may have managed to rip away a delegate from Bernie:

– THIS is fascinating:

Obviously if Biden pulls out the nomination (and he has every chance to catch up to Bernie within the next month) he will have to change this because Trump is a master at retail politics. Biden has struggled before (explains his history of poor performances in primaries and caucuses — tonight is the best night of his political career) and he has to get very good before going up against Trump if Biden makes it through to the general.

– 8:52PMCT Biden taking Arkansas

– Sanders is struggling with minority voters. NYT notes Biden’s success — this will be a huge thorn for Sanders going forward

– Biden is seeing one of the biggest political comebacks in primary history and this isn’t possible without the influence of James Clyburn. The speculation is Clyburn’s influence extends far beyond SC to NC and VA. More. This is brilliant:

It was an old-fashioned vote-whipping triumph. Jim Curley would have recognized it on sight. Two generations of Daleys would have celebrated it. Adam Clayton Powell would have whistled in admiration. But the analogy fails, because Clyburn did not do this as a boss. He didn’t order up votes. He summoned them. He did it through thousands of personal connections that he’d made all over the state all down through the years. There was power in these politics, but this was not an exercise in power politics. Those connections extend beyond South Carolina, and the power of them runs in a number of directions.

The biggest winner tonight may be James Clyburn. That man’s coattails saved Biden’s political life. Clyburn put in decades of work in retail politics making connections and like nothing I’ve ever seen he called up his contacts to the polls. He stepped in at the 11th hour and pulled Biden through. There aren’t enough chits in politics to repay that kind of Dumbledore magic.

– 9:01pmCT Minnesota goes to Biden.

– 9:15PMCT: Bernie speaking in front of a horde of white people (the man is struggling so hard with non-white progressives) and by speaking I mean YELLING LOUDLY and sounding mad.

– Sanders isn’t guaranteed and the fact that these fortunes changed tonight means Democrats could have stopped this looooooong ago.

– Warren loses her home state of Oklahoma and her adopted state of Massachusetts. !!!!!!!!!!!!

– 9:22pmCT: BIDEN WINS MASSACHUSETTS.

– Biden confuses his sister for his wife in his remarks and I don’t even care, this is so entertaining. Actual quote: “By the way this is my wife — oh wait, no.” Hashtag Super Thursday everybody.

HAHAHAHAHA video:

– I literally LOL’d:

– Let’s check in on Mike Bloomberg:

– Back to Biden speech:

– Let’s look at Texas:

If Biden can make up this difference as the precincts report in, HUGE.

– Don’t get too giddy about the Democrat party possibly rejecting an avowed socialist but actual communist. Here’s why. NBC’s exit data:

If you think this won’t rear it’s head in 2024, you’re mistaken. Will discuss on air tomorrow. 

– TEXAS: Later sweep on exit data

– Compare Mike Bloomberg spending eleventy frillion billion dollars only to win six, that’s 6 delegates from American Samoa and this:

– 10pmCT Fox projects SANDERS TAKES CALIFORNIA 

– Bloomberg outspent Biden 50:1.

– 10:36pmCT Your girl has taken her second dose of strep meds but is watching Texas, which is currently too close to call.

– Oh man:

– 10:45pmCT TEXAS:
79%, 203 of 254 counties reporting:
Biden 27.2% – 155,438
Sanders 27.61% – 157,782
Bloomer 18.73% – 107,047
Warren 11.01% – 62,950

– Washington Examiner: Super Tuesday exposes age divide that’s a bad sign for @TheDemocrats in general election.
– 11:00PMCT Texas is still too close to call. With 206 of 254 counties reporting (81%) Biden is at 173,768 – 28.38%. Sanders is at 168,836 – 27.58%
– 11:16pmCT TEXAS: Biden now pulling away from Bernie – 30% to 27%
I will have full analysis, delegate count, and more on tomorrow’s broadcast. One thing is for certain — Biden is a contender again and suddenly Sanders isn’t so sure in what has been one of the biggest political comebacks of all time.
– 12:44pmCT: TEXAS GOES TO BIDEN 96% reporting Biden at 31% and Sanders at 29%.