March 4, 2020, 1:59 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 1:59 a.m. ET By Biden picks up Texas. Image Attendees at an event for Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at Texas Southern University in Houston on Saturday. Credit... Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times Joseph R. Biden Jr. has won the Texas primary, giving the former vice president a victory in the second-biggest delegate prize of Super Tuesday — Texas has 228 — as he aims to hold off a looming advantage from Bernie Sanders. Mr. Biden got a bounce on Monday night from an endorsement from Beto O’Rourke, who remains a local political folk hero following his narrow 2018 Senate loss to Ted Cruz. Along with Mr. O’Rourke, Mr. Biden heralded late endorsements from several of the state’s members of Congress, along with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, who joined him for celebratory events in Dallas on Monday. The Texas Democratic Party said early Wednesday that even with a race call, it might take some time to officially divvy up the delegates. They aren’t expecting 100 percent of precincts to report results until the morning and will get to work then. Read more

March 4, 2020, 1:58 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 1:58 a.m. ET By Nick Corasaniti and Lines to vote in Texas were horrific. Poll closures were probably a factor. AUSTIN — The lines at polling places across Texas have been horrific: Five hours after the polls were supposed to close, some people who got in line before the cutoff are still waiting to vote. As of 1 a.m. Eastern time, some polls were still open, but even the Texas secretary of state’s office could not say how many. Only county-level officials could provide that information, the office said. There are 254 counties in Texas. Several factors are involved here, including the sheer length of some of Texas’ ballots: As Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, noted on Twitter, voters had to pick not just a presidential candidate, but also nominees for a slew of congressional, state and local races. But a major contributor is this simple fact: Texas officials have closed some 750 polling places since the Supreme Court overturned a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013. And most of those polling places — 542, to be specific — were in the 50 counties that gained the most black and Latino residents, according to an analysis by The Guardian. “We need more machines, we need more locations, we need better voting hours, we need better voting access, and we need an aggressive agenda that gets that done so that this doesn’t happen again in November,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. To the people who had to wait five hours to vote, Mr. Garcia said, “Texas’ government failed you, and we all failed you.” Nick Corasaniti reported from Austin, and Maggie Astor from New York. Read more

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 4, 2020, 1:21 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 1:21 a.m. ET By Gina Ortiz Jones, Wendy Davis and Pete Sessions win primaries in Texas. Three familiar faces in Texas politics have gotten closer to securing representation in the House as part of the Texas delegation. Wendy Davis, who lost a high-profile governor’s race in 2014, won the Democratic primary in the 21st District, where she will face Representative Chip Roy, a freshman G.O.P. incumbent. Along the border, Gina Ortiz Jones clinched the nomination to run for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which is open. In 2018, she lost to Representative Will Hurd, the retiring incumbent, by less than 2,000 votes. Both women are part of the “Red to Blue” program run by the House Democratic campaign arm, which singles out candidates that the organization feels has some of the strongest chances of flipping districts in favor of the Democratic Party. For the Republicans, Pete Sessions, who was defeated in 2018 by Colin Allred, is now vying to return to Congress in a different district. On Wednesday night, he secured a spot in the runoff in the race to replace Representative Bill Flores, the retiring incumbent, who tapped another candidate as his chosen successor.

March 4, 2020, 1:15 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 1:15 a.m. ET By How the vote is shaping up in California. LOS ANGELES — California appeared poised to deliver a victory to Bernie Sanders Tuesday night, with Latinos and young people driving much of the support. With 415 pledged delegates, California is by far the biggest prize of Super Tuesday, and Mr. Sanders had been banking on a significant win there. Along with Mr. Sanders, both Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Michael R. Bloomberg seemed likely to receive delegates in the state, based on early returns. Mr. Bloomberg poured $66 million into television advertising there, far more than any other candidate. Mr. Sanders won more white and Asian-American voters but, reflecting a national trend, Mr. Biden won among black voters, according to exit polls. There was also a clear generational split, with Mr. Sanders winning decisively among voters under 49 but Mr. Biden winning handily with voters older than 50. Mr. Sanders appeared to win among voters at all education levels, according to exit polls.

March 4, 2020, 1:14 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 1:14 a.m. ET By Where Bloomberg won: Aspen and wine country. Image Michael R. Bloomberg at his primary night rally in West Palm Beach, Fla. Credit... Chang W. Lee/The New York Times It has not been a good night for Michael R. Bloomberg, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars only to win a single contest on Tuesday: American Samoa, where roughly 350 people caucused. He earned four delegates for his efforts there. But he did have a few strong spots within states, in some poetically perfect places. He won Pitkin County, Colo., home to Aspen, and Summit County, Utah, home to Park City. He also has a narrow lead, for now, in Napa County: the heart of California wine country.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 4, 2020, 12:25 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 12:25 a.m. ET By In downtown Los Angeles, two polling places, a world apart. LOS ANGELES — It is only a 15 minute walk, if you go fast, between the two polling places in downtown Los Angeles. On a normal day, the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row and the hipster Ace Hotel are a world apart. On Election Day evening, the differences seemed even more potent. At the Union Rescue Mission, a five-story building that houses close to 1,100 people struggling to stay off the streets and out of the tent encampments, the cafeteria was turned into a polling place. Voters — firefighters from the nearby station, homeless outreach workers, residents of the Mission, the homeless themselves — trickled in, but there was never much of a line. Close by, a line of people snaked far down the street and around the corner, as voters waited, some for more than two hours, to vote at the Ace Hotel. At the bar, happy hour customers were eating oysters. Jennifer Van Leigh, 36, first went to the Ace, saw the line, and was one of the few to realize that there were other options. “I figured this place would have no line,” she said, at the Mission. “Because no one wants to come to Skid Row.” At the Mission, voting was the last thing on the mind of Eduardo Duran, who was waving a flyer with a photo of his nephew Miguel, a crystal meth addict who has been missing since mid-February. No one had seen him, and he was told to stick the flyer on the wall, next to several other notices of missing people. “He’s not homeless, but he chooses to be on the streets,” said Mr. Duran. “We went to all the hospitals, police, the parks.” Andy Bales, the chief executive officer of the Mission, had just sent an email to his staff, asking them “to spread the word to all of our guests to vote.” “Share your voice, be part of it,” is what he likes to say to the people living at the Mission. The homeless crisis here disproportionately affects black men, and many of the voters at the Mission said they were voting for Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose candidacy has focused on African-Americans. “I’m most familiar with Joe Biden,” said Patrick Wright, 50, who is African-American and recently got out of prison. He is living at the Mission while he tries to get his life back on track. Read more

March 4, 2020, 12:22 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 12:22 a.m. ET By Undecided until the end in Tustin, Calif. TUSTIN, Calif. — Up until the polls closed, Michael Van Duyn, a structural engineer who works in Santa Ana, was still weighing his options. “I’m really on the fence,” he said. Michael R. Bloomberg, he said, is successful and a “capable manager,” though his nondisclosure agreements “don’t reflect very well on him.” While Bernie Sanders has been labeled a socialist, Mr. Van Duyn doesn’t seen him as “an evil threat.” And Elizabeth Warren “seems like she’d be a good mom for the country. Maybe that’s what we need right now,” he said. Any of them but Joseph R. Biden Jr. “I just think that going forward he doesn’t seem like he has a grasp of the future and where we’re headed,” Mr. Van Duyn said. No candidate, he added, has stated a position on infrastructure. “It is one of those things that’s boring to most people,” he said. “It’s really not at the forefront of the national discussion right now.” Mr. Van Duyn and about a dozen other civil engineers were at an election night happy hour hosted by the Orange County chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers, watching the results come in California style: Taco Tuesday plus beers. Sitting next to him was Josue Vaglienty, a transportation engineer who voted for Ms. Warren. He wants infrastructure to be a priority for whoever advances to the November ballot. “It should be a nonpartisan issue, but oftentimes it gets thrown under the rug,” Mr. Vaglienty said. Was Mr. Van Duyn closer to making up his mind after chatting about the candidates? Minutes later he left, but sent an update via text message: “I went for Sanders because I felt he had a better chance than Warren, given that he has been polling ahead of her, and that he was trailing Biden,” he wrote. Read more

March 4, 2020, 12:17 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 12:17 a.m. ET By Biden supporters cheer in Los Angeles. Image Audience members at Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s primary rally at the Baldwin Hills Recreation Center in Los Angeles. Credit... Josh Haner/The New York Times LOS ANGELES — At the Biden party in Baldwin Hills, Nicole Duquette, a public school principal dressed in red, white, and blue, was streaming election returns on her phone as people came over to pet her spaniel, wearing a Joe Biden sweater. “Biden has the experience to get to work on day one,” Ms. Duquette, 40, said. “He’s a statesman, he’s centered and grounded with a good moral and ethical compass, which is not something that could be said about the current president. It’s time to take back our country and restore its reputation.” The music cut and the crowd started chanting, “We want Joe!” and “United for Biden!” Julia Mervis, 20, and Brett Chody, 19, made up the college student contingent at the event. Both attend University of Southern California. Ms. Chody said she was passionate about gun control, but she preferred Mr. Biden because she thought he was more well-rounded as a candidate. “Nobody’s perfect, but I do think Bloomberg has a lot of flaws that will keep him from getting the nomination at the end of the day,” she said. Ms. Mervis made a face when asked if she thought Mr. Sanders was electable. “He has some good ideas that I don’t necessarily think are achievable,” Ms. Mervis said. “I think his policies are just way too opposite to the Trump administration right now, and that someone who’s a little more moderate has the ability to beat Trump.” Read more

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 4, 2020, 12:02 a.m. ET March 4, 2020, 12:02 a.m. ET By In Texas, there are two wins for the chosen candidates of the Washington incumbents. Image Representative Kay Granger at a subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. Credit... T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times Representative Kay Granger, Republican of Texas, fended off the most expensive and brutal challenge of her political career. Her opponent, Chris Putnam, a former technology executive backed by more than $1 million in spending, had attacked her for voting on massive spending bills and failing to show unwavering loyalty to President Trump. But shortly before midnight on the East Coast, Ms. Granger received a call from Mr. Putnam conceding the race, her campaign staff said. The primary in her district, Texas’s 12th, is all but guaranteed to decide the general election’s outcome. In the Texas Senate race, M.J. Hegar, who has the blessing of the Senate Democratic campaign arm, earned a spot in the primary runoff. Whoever wins that runoff will go on to challenge the Republican Senator John Cornyn.

March 3, 2020, 11:58 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:58 p.m. ET By A setback for Jeff Sessions, who heads to a runoff in Alabama Senate race. MOBILE, Ala. — Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general who emerged from political exile and defied President Trump to run for the United States Senate in Alabama, suffered a setback on Tuesday in his fight to win back the seat he held for 20 years, falling well short of a majority and landing in a runoff election where he will compete with a Republican rival from a weakened position. Precincts across the state were still counting votes just before midnight. But Mr. Sessions was fending off a strong challenge from a political upstart, Tommy Tuberville, the former Auburn University football coach who clung closely to Mr. Trump in a relentlessly negative and personal campaign that turned the race into a contest of who was more loyal to the president. He will now face Mr. Sessions in a March 31 runoff. A third Republican, Bradley Byrne, a congressman from the Mobile area who tried to overcome his long association with the Republican Party establishment by also tethering himself to Mr. Trump, conceded defeat on Tuesday night.

March 3, 2020, 11:27 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:27 p.m. ET By Urging unity in San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO — Although polling places throughout the state struggled to manage long lines, voters saw little to no wait times at major polling places in San Francisco. Hours before the polls closed, voters at San Francisco’s City Hall filled out registration forms and went straight through to vote. The polling place had not yet released turnout numbers for Tuesday, but said it had processed 1,005 voters the day prior. Voters in the city gathered at Manny’s, a cafe and political space, to watch as the results came in. Giffords, an organization founded by Gabby Giffords that advocates gun control, held a fund-raiser at the event. “Good evening, San Francisco! Are we ready to take our country back?” David Chiu, a Democrat who represents San Francisco in the State Assembly, asked the crowd. Mr. Chiu urged unity, saying that although he had backed Elizabeth Warren, Californians needed to come together to support whoever became the Democratic nominee. “What’s so important is that we come together after this night,” Mr. Chiu said. “We define who the Democratic Party is.” As Manny Yekutiel, the owner of the cafe, announced that results for Texas were tipping the state toward Bernie Sanders, the crowd cheered. Leslie Matthews, 33, said that she had voted by mail on Saturday and backed Elizabeth Warren. “I feel like I might have voted differently today than Saturday,” she said, noting that the South Carolina results had not yet come in when she cast her vote. “I might’ve flipped my support to Bernie Sanders.” As she watched the results roll in on televisions throughout the venue, Ms. Matthews said she was looking forward to finding out who the nominee would be. “There’s been a lot of not knowing who the nominee is,” she said. “Being in this limbo for so long, it would be nice to have an answer.” Bronwen Marshall-Bass, 31, said that she had voted for Mr. Sanders, citing Medicare for All as his most appealing policy initiative. “People want to do half solutions and I feel like his solutions get to the root of the problem,” Ms. Marshall-Bass said. Read more

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 3, 2020, 11:19 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:19 p.m. ET By Two North Carolina Democrats are poised to join the House after redistricting. Democratic voters on Tuesday selected Deborah Ross, an unsuccessful 2016 Senate candidate, to run in North Carolina’s newly redrawn second congressional district this November, all but assuring she will become a member of the House. The district, surrounding Raleigh, is one of two House seats that will be a virtual lock for Democrats after a court ordered the state to redraw its congressional map last year. Kathy Manning, a lawyer and small business owner, was on track to win the other, the state’s newly drawn sixth district around Greensboro. If Democrats do win the seats in November, it would help insulate their House majority from Republicans seeking to reclaim control.

March 3, 2020, 11:17 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:17 p.m. ET By Biden pulls off a big upset in Massachusetts. Joseph R. Biden Jr. pulled out a stunning victory in Massachusetts, an outcome that did not even seem within the realm of possibility this morning, when it seemed clear that it was a two-way race there between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. With 91 delegates to award, Massachusetts was not the biggest prize tonight, but for Mr. Biden, it may have been the biggest upset: one of the most liberal states in the country, the home of one of his opponents and next door to the home of another. For Mr. Sanders, it was a big disappointment: Mr. Biden was expected to do well in the South, but New England was supposed to be the progressive wing’s territory. But it was nothing short of devastating for Ms. Warren, who had been counting on a win in Massachusetts, at the very least, to show that her candidacy was still viable. While she is above the 15 percent viability threshold to earn some delegates, she is in serious danger of finishing third. Read more

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 3, 2020, 11:14 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:14 p.m. ET By In heavily Latino East Los Angeles, a bastion of support for Sanders. LOS ANGELES — Looked at one way, Lorena Vellanowth’s family is the embodiment of the American dream. She came to Los Angeles from Mexico as a baby, and her daughter went on to study at the University of California, Los Angeles, and then to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California. But all that success came with a big caveat: Her daughter, who works in public administration for the city of Anaheim, is struggling under the weight of almost half a million dollars in student loans. “Bigger than my mortgage,” said Ms. Vellanowth, 43, who works in health care. She said her daughter is getting married this month, and she worries about how her daughter will be able to afford to raise children or buy a home. That reason alone was enough for Ms. Vellanowth, and many of her family members and friends in the Latino community, to support Bernie Sanders, she said, drawn by his message of fighting the type of inequality they feel every day in Los Angeles. “I’m Latina, and you’d think that’s not someone I’d vote for, an old white guy,” she said on Monday afternoon outside a polling center at a park in the heavily Latino East Los Angeles. But she worries about her candidate’s future, now that the Democratic establishment is coalescing around Joseph R. Biden Jr. “I just hope the Democratic Party doesn’t screw him,” she said, of Mr. Sanders. Read more

March 3, 2020, 11:13 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:13 p.m. ET By In states that switched from caucuses to primaries, turnout is up and Sanders is down. An underrated factor in tonight’s results: the shift from caucuses to primaries since 2016. In his 2016 race against Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders did especially well in states that held caucuses, which have much lower turnout than primaries and reward candidates with the most intense support: something Mr. Sanders certainly has. (If you’re not familiar with the difference between a primary and a caucus, here’s a brief explanation.) Mr. Sanders’s base is highly loyal and highly enthusiastic. It is full, in other words, of the sort of people who are willing to commit the two or more hours it can take to participate in a caucus. And his campaign’s organizing skill and resources are second to none, another crucial element in a system where supporters of opposing candidates can realign in real time. But caucuses are also inherently exclusionary. They exclude people who don’t have flexible work schedules, because they take place at a set time; they aren’t like primaries, where you can show up any time within a wide window. They exclude people who can’t afford child care, many people with disabilities, and people who are not comfortable publicly declaring their candidate preference. And they often aren’t held at voters’ normal polling sites. All of this is to say that it’s not a coincidence that turnout is much higher in primaries than in caucuses. With all of that in mind, several states — including Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and Utah, which voted on Tuesday — switched from caucuses to primaries this cycle. The results? Turnout shot up: In Minnesota, for instance, with less than two-thirds of the vote counted, turnout was already more than twice the total from the state’s 2016 caucuses. And Mr. Sanders did not do nearly as well in those four states as he did four years ago. Read more

March 3, 2020, 11:00 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 11:00 p.m. ET By The polls are now closed everywhere. Image Berenice Rico voted on Tuesday in Livingston, Calif. Credit... Max Whittaker for The New York Times The polls just closed in California, the largest prize of the evening. But it will still be some time before we know the results. California, the most populous state in the country, has 415 delegates to award — including, crucially, 271 at the congressional district level. This means that, in addition to the state-level count, there are 53 congressional districts trying to determine who crossed the 15 percent threshold there. And California is not known for counting votes particularly fast. In other words, don’t expect final results tonight. They might not even come this week. And don’t assume that a protracted count means irregularities — it’s normal in California. Read more

Advertisement Continue reading the main story

March 3, 2020, 10:51 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 10:51 p.m. ET By Katie Glueck and In Los Angeles, Biden celebrates: ‘I’m here to report we are very much alive!’ Video Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. spoke to supporters in Los Angeles on Super Tuesday. Credit Credit... Josh Haner/The New York Times LOS ANGELES — A triumphant, defiant Joseph R. Biden Jr. took the stage here in Los Angeles on Tuesday, reveling in his victories in several states across the nation and obliquely dismissing the performances of several of his rivals. “We were told, well, when you got to Super Tuesday, it’d be over,” Mr. Biden said. “Well, it may be over for the other guy! Tell that to the folks in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Minnesota! And maybe even Massachusetts, it’s too close to call.” He added: “I’m here to report we are very much alive! And make no mistake about it, this campaign will send Donald Trump packing.” Mr. Biden acknowledged that the results had not yet been called in the two biggest delegate prizes of the night, California and Texas, two states where Mr. Sanders had been expected to show strength. But Mr. Sanders also lost to Mr. Biden in states he contested strongly, while Michael R. Bloomberg, who had threatened to cut into Mr. Biden’s standing with moderate voters, has so far fallen short largely across the board. It was an extraordinary turn of events for Mr. Biden, who finished fourth in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire and second in Nevada. He has run for president three times but had never won a single state as a White House hopeful until Saturday, when he romped to victory in South Carolina, propelled by overwhelming support from African-American voters. That win set in motion real momentum and a cascade of endorsements, including, on Monday alone, support from Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke, three former rivals from Minnesota, Indiana and Texas, respectively. “It’s a good night, and it seems to be getting even better,” Mr. Biden said. “They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing.” He also delivered an unmistakable rebuke of Mr. Sanders’s theory of the case: that he could meaningfully reshape the electorate and spark a revolution of progressive change. “People are talking about a revolution,” Mr. Biden said. “We started a movement. We’ve increased turnout.” Yet for all of the newfound energy around Mr. Biden’s campaign, his watch party in Los Angeles didn’t reflect it: The event drew a relatively small crowd, Mr. Biden started late and spoke briefly — repeating a version of the speech he has been giving since South Carolina — and he was interrupted by anti-dairy protesters. Still, he sought to end on a message of unity and hope after detailing what he described as his own progressive vision. “We are a decent, brave, resilient people,” he said. “We can believe again. But we are better than this moment. We are better than this president. So get back up and take back this country.” Katie Glueck reported from Los Angeles, and Thomas Kaplan from New York. Read more

March 3, 2020, 10:46 p.m. ET March 3, 2020, 10:46 p.m. ET By Bloomberg plans to make a decision on his campaign on Wednesday. Image Michael R. Bloomberg’s field office on primary day in Charlotte, N.C. Credit... Travis Dove for The New York Times Michael R. Bloomberg and his advisers intend to confer on Wednesday to review the results of the Super Tuesday primaries and decide his path forward in the race, people familiar with the campaign’s plans said. The returns across much of the country represented a daunting setback for Mr. Bloomberg, who was not on track to win a single state after spending more than half a billion dollars on his campaign. The revived candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared to have cut deeply into Mr. Bloomberg’s support among moderates, suburban voters and African-Americans, sending him tumbling in once-promising states like Virginia and North Carolina. By late Tuesday evening, his only victory was in American Samoa. But Mr. Bloomberg was also on track to collect delegates in a number of states, possibly including Texas and California, the two biggest troves of the night. Without a fuller picture of the overall delegate race, Mr. Bloomberg had made no decisions late about his next moves, according to people briefed on his thinking. Advisers to Mr. Bloomberg have indicated in the past that he might have little appetite for a drawn-out battle with Mr. Biden, if the former vice president were to reclaim his former position as a front-runner. Mr. Bloomberg could also face considerable pressure to withdraw if he were seen as undermining Mr. Biden’s strength among centrist voters. But given his unlimited financial resources, it is not clear that anyone could force Mr. Bloomberg’s hand if he were inclined to keep on going. Marc LaVorgna, a senior aide to Mr. Bloomberg, said that the campaign’s plan to evaluate where it stood once the votes were counted had not changed. Heading into Tuesday, he said, their position was “that we would look at numbers tomorrow.” Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting. Read more