March 17 primaries

Joe Biden continued to widen his delegate lead over Bernie Sanders during the latest round of voting in the 2020 Democratic Party primary.

On Tuesday, March 17, three states voted: Florida, Illinois, and Arizona. Ohio was also scheduled to vote on Tuesday, but amid fears of the spread of coronavirus and encouragement of social distancing, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine successfully delayed voting in the state until June 2.

We may be living in a vastly different world than we were a week ago, but one constant remains: Joe Biden appears well on his way to being the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Right out of the gate on Tuesday night, Biden notched a nearly 40-point win in Florida, the state with the biggest cache of delegates. He followed it up soon after with another resounding win in Illinois and won Arizona shortly after polls closed there.

After well over two years of trying by progressive Democrats, Rep. Dan Lipinski will no longer represent Illinois’s Third Congressional District in the House.

Challenger Marie Newman defeated the longtime representative — who’s also one of the last remaining anti-abortion Democrats — in the Democratic primary on Tuesday night.

Despite concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, three of the four states scheduled to hold presidential primaries this Tuesday, March 17, went ahead as planned (Ohio did not). In Illinois, the Democratic presidential race wasn’t the only one on the ballot.

In addition to its presidential primary, Illinois also had a slate of congressional primaries on tap for this Tuesday. Of particular interest: a pair of progressive primary challenges to longtime Democratic House members, and three Republican primaries — two House, one Senate — to challenge Democratic lawmakers come November.

Two states — Florida and Illinois — are holding Republican primary contests on Tuesday, and President Donald Trump is certain to win both. He currently leads the delegate count with 1,113 delegates to former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld’s one.

But as with everything else, these primary states are facing the added challenge of counteracting the spread of coronavirus — in Florida, for example, there have been nearly 150 positive cases of the novel coronavirus detected since March 1. Each state is taking action: Florida has moved multiple voting locations to avoid areas where those most vulnerable to the virus (namely older Floridians) would be present. Illinois, which has had more than 90 positive cases of the coronavirus, has moved 168 Chicago-area polling places that were located in senior living facilities, and the state extended early voting hours in Chicago and other areas of the state.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Illinois, gaining more ground as the party’s 2020 frontrunner.

The former vice president has been steadily gaining momentum following the South Carolina primary, Super Tuesday, and the March 10 primaries. And he came into Tuesday, March 17, well positioned to win in multiple states, including Illinois, the state his former boss Barack Obama represented in the US Senate. While some polling showed a small lead in the state for Sen. Bernie Sanders in February, by March, polling gave Biden a commanding lead.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won Florida’s Democratic primary, in the exact opposite of a political surprise.

Even before Biden jumped out to what appears to be a dominating national polling lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders, the state looked set to be one of the friendliest contests for him.

After a tumultuous 24 hours, the Ohio primary is officially delayed.

Early Tuesday morning — shortly before polls were originally set to open — a panel of four Ohio Supreme Court judges voted unanimously to effectively back the state’s efforts to close its polls. The decision followed a chaotic back-and-forth between Gov. Mike DeWine and a court in Ohio’s Franklin County on Monday, which raised questions over whether the governor had overstepped the limits of his office in his attempts to postpone the primary.

Three more states — Illinois, Florida, and Arizona — will vote in the 2020 Democratic primary Tuesday. And even with possibly depressed turnout due to coronavirus, the results don’t seem hard to predict.

According to the polls, former Vice President Joe Biden will likely win all of the day’s contests.

Despite a wave of cancellations and postponements in response to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic — with everything from the NBA to Broadway on hold — three states are set to go forward with their presidential primaries as scheduled on Tuesday, March 17.

Voters in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois will all vote in what is expected to be another good day for former Vice President Joe Biden.

The Ohio primary is now off.

According to Gov. Mike DeWine, who had urged courts to delay the election, Ohio’s state health director Amy Acton has declared a health emergency and closed the polls — which were scheduled to open Tuesday — as a result.

The spread of the novel coronavirus across the US is seriously complicating the Democratic presidential primary season.

On Saturday, Georgia announced it would postpone its March 24 primary, following Louisiana’s decision to move its April 4 contest — both states cited concerns over the spread of the coronavirus as the reason. Georgia moved its primary to May 19; Louisiana will hold its primary on June 20.