Joe Biden Won Super Tuesday, but Bernie Sanders Won With Latinx Voters

Fourteen states held presidential primaries on Tuesday, March 3. It was one of the biggest and most important days of the 2020 primaries with one-third of all delegates based on results from Super Tuesday states and California and Texas having the largest numbers of delegates. The projected winner of Super Tuesday is Joe Biden. The former vice president took the lead in several states including Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. But it wasn’t a home run —  far from it. Sen. Bernie Sanders won big numbers in Colorado, Utah, Vermont, and California. The defining result from Super Tuesday’s results is that the Latinx community swayed toward Sen. Sanders. 

According to a CNN exit poll in California, Sen. Sanders won 55 percent of Latinx voters, while Biden got 21 percent. NPR is reporting that according to exit polls in Texas, Sen. Sanders won more than 40 percent of the Latinx vote. “In 2016, he won just 29 percent. He is performing particularly strongly among young Latino Democrats there between ages 18 and 29 — with 64 percent support.”

https://twitter.com/igrullonpaz/status/1235086479279316992

In Virginia, Latinx voters were mostly split between Biden and Sen. Sanders. According to the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI), an excellent research team that was breaking down the #Latinovote all day and night, the Latinx vote in “Virginia is split almost evenly between Senator Bernie Sanders and VP Joe Biden.” LPPI also reports that the Latinx turnout “greatly increased this year over the 2016 primary.”

The general feeling throughout Super Tuesday is that the increase in voting increased considerably, especially among Latinx voters. Many reported that they waited more than two or three hours to vote, which is insane but an indication of how voter suppression works. Long lines did not deter people from casting their ballot, and the results are proof of that. 

This split is fascinating https://t.co/ClxBqt0aIm

— Jennifer Medina (@jennymedina) March 4, 2020

Political news pundits also declare that this primary is showing how black voters will be Team Biden, while Latinx voters prefer Sanders. Of course, this is not to say that Latinx voters didn’t vote for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, because they did, as well as for former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. But it wasn’t enough votes to take any lead. 

Either way, what we are witnessing is a new chapter in Latinx voting. Our community is not easily persuaded, nor will they give in to voting intimidation. We are voting with our minds and our hearts. 

These are majority-Latino areas in Virginia, including 94% Latino blocks in Manassas City. We are currently scraping data and merging precinct to census data, with some results coming soon (via @realMABarreto @ae_gutierrez_ @mfr_roman @MichaelHerndon_ @jesshjlee) #SuperMartes pic.twitter.com/jqXd6NjZ5f

— UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute (@UCLAlatino) March 4, 2020

“It’s hard to be Latino right now,” Christian Arana, the policy director for the Latino Community Foundation, a philanthropic group based in California, told the New York Times. “There are so many of us who feel we have to constantly be on the watch for something terrible. People are channeling their anger into voting in a way we have not seen historically.”

But just because Biden took the lead on Super Tuesday, we still have several more states that await their turn to cast their vote.