Joe Biden secured a key victory in the Democratic presidential nomination race on Tuesday by winning the vital state of Michigan and delivering a major blow to his rival, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.

The former vice-president also notched wins in the primaries in Mississippi, Missouri and Idaho. North Dakota went to Sanders, and Washington is still to declare.

Speaking from Philadelphia, Biden sounded confident about Tuesday’s election results and struck a tone that hinted his race against Donald Trump might be beginning.

“Just over a week ago, many of the pundits declared that this candidacy was dead. Now we’re very much alive,” Biden said. “Although there’s a way to go, it looks like we’re going to have another good night.”

Biden’s remarks sounded at times like a general election speech rather than one for a candidate who has not yet secured the Democratic nomination.

“Tonight, we are a step closer to restoring decency, dignity, and honor to the White House, that’s our ultimate goal,” Biden said. “At this moment when there’s so much fear in the country, when there’s so much fear across the world, we need American leadership. We need presidential leadership that’s honest, trusted, truthful, and steady.”

When he mentioned Sanders, Biden didn’t contrast himself with the Vermont senator, but instead thanked him and reached out to his supporters.

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“I want to thank Bernie Sanders and his supporters for their tireless passion,” Biden said. “We share a common goal and together we’ll defeat Donald Trump.”

Both the Biden campaign and the Sanders campaign had cancelled scheduled election night rallies in Ohio as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus. In a sign of the seriousness of his defeat Sanders opted against offering remarks and instead returned to his home in Burlington, Vermont.

Michigan was the most delegate-rich state of the night and a state that Bernie Sanders won four years ago in an upset over Hillary Clinton. Even before half of the states on Tuesday were called it was clear that Sanders’ path to the nomination had become imperiled. Biden had grown his delegate lead over Sanders to 715 over 584, a remarkable sea change in the race from just a month ago when Sanders’ trajectory was toward being the frontrunner in the primary.

After Michigan though Sanders has to win more than 55% of the remaining delegates to get the nomination, a near herculean feat.

Democrats began to argue that Biden’s ascension to being the presumptive nominee was close.

“I just think this is a great signal going forward that people are ready to put someone in there to beat Donald Trump,” said the former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm on CNN.

Guy Cecil, the chairman of the Priorities USA super Pac, announced on Tuesday after Missouri and Mississippi was called that his organization would throw its weight behind Biden.

Guy Cecil (@guycecil) The math is now clear. Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee for President and @prioritiesUSA is going to do everything we can to help him defeat Donald Trump in November. I hope others will join us in the fight.

Sanders and his surrogates have been doggedly campaigning across Michigan, a state he unexpectedly won when he ran for president in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. The state has the most delegates of any of the voting states on Tuesday, making it a top priority for the Vermont senator to win again and the focus of the night’s results.

Biden campaigned in the state on election day. At one stop in Detroit he got into a heated exchange with an autoworker who spoke about gun rights and accused the former vice-president of “actively trying to end the second amendment”.

“You’re full of shit,” Biden snapped, going on to say": “I support the second amendment … I have a shotgun, a 20-gauge, a 12-gauge.”

Biden supports universal background checks for gun purchases as well as an assault weapons ban.

The ongoing coronavirus crisis is also a wildcard. Just a few hours before polls opened on Tuesday afternoon both the Sanders campaign and Biden campaign cancelled planned election night events in Ohio as a precautionary measure in response to the coronavirus.

However, in Washington state, the center of the outbreak in the US where 22 people have died so far, officials believe new rules that mean the primary uses mail-in and drop-off ballots rather than a caucus system should prevent disruption, and may even break turnout records as a result. Election officials instructed staff to take extra precautionary steps to avoid spreading germs. They urged staffers to wash their hands frequently and to cough into tissues to avoid possibly spreading the virus.

At election centers in Washington, some people wore latex gloves as they counted votes as a precaution to the coronavirus.

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Sanders had held a rally in Ann Arbor with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young liberal congresswoman, on Sunday. The rally drew an estimated 10,000 people, underscoring Sanders’ support in the more progressive quarters of the state. Sanders himself conceded the importance of winning Michigan again during his speech. “Michigan is the most important state coming up on Tuesday,” Sanders said.

But as results came in on Tuesday night and showed Biden’s lead widening beyond reach, Sanders’ Michigan campaign coordinator, Michael Fasullo, addressed supporters and volunteers gathering in Detroit and characterized the night as “difficult, frustrating”.

“This work is not easy,” he said. “It’s hard for many reasons. There are entrenched interests and there’s an establishment that wants to see us not succeed, but we continue on throughout this process no matter what.”

Sanders’ loss in Idaho was another blow; not only did the Vermont senator win the Idaho caucuses in a landslide in 2016, but western states have also been one of his few strong points in recent weeks.

Biden’s victories on Tuesday night came after his decisive victory in the South Carolina primary, which then boosted him to a remarkable comeback performance last week on Super Tuesday, where he swept a number of states Sanders had been expected to do well in. Since then the Biden campaign has rapidly gained support from former Democratic primary rivals and other elected officials. Former presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker endorsed Biden on Sunday and Monday respectively, and held an event with him in Detroit.

Joan E Greve contributed reporting