DETROIT--Joe Biden won Michigan's crucial Democratic nominating contest on Tuesday, taking a big step toward the party's presidential nomination and dealing a stinging blow to rival Bernie Sanders' fading White House bid.
Biden, the former vice president under Barack Obama, also captured Missouri and Mississippi on a day when six states made their choices in the race to pick a challenger to Republican President Donald Trump.
The wins on Tuesday put Biden, 77, on a path to the nomination to face Trump in the Nov. 3 election, while effectively closing the path for Sanders, 78, who had been hoping for an upset win in Michigan to keep his dwindling White House hopes alive. Sanders' disappointing performance in a state that he won in the 2016 Democratic primary will increase pressure on the democratic socialist and senator from Vermont to exit the race and help Democrats prepare for a bruising general election campaign against Trump.
Speaking in Philadelphia, Biden thanked Sanders and his supporters for their passion and made an appeal for party unity. "We share a common goal and together we'll defeat Donald Trump," he said.
Sanders, who returned home to Vermont on Tuesday night, did not plan a public statement.
With 61% of precincts reporting, Biden was leading in Michigan with 53% of the vote, versus 39% for Sanders. Edison Research projected the primary turnout of 1.7 million would surpass the 1.2 million who voted in 2016.
Michigan was the most competitive of the six states that held nominating contests on Tuesday, that also included Washington, North Dakota and Idaho. With 125 delegates, it offers the largest number of the minimum 1,991 delegates a candidate needs to secure the nomination outright.
It also is a crucial battleground state that Trump won by just over 10,000 votes, an unexpected victory that along with wins in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin propelled his ascent to the White House.
The Biden breakthrough in Michigan, along with his dominant victories in Missouri and Mississippi, could be too much for Sanders to overcome. By the end of March, about two-thirds of the delegates will be allocated.
"The math says Joe is our prohibitive nominee. We need to bring the party together," former presidential candidate Andrew Yang said on CNN as he endorsed Biden.
Voters across the states that voted on Tuesday said they trusted Biden the most to handle a major crisis by roughly 2-to-1 over Sanders, exit polls by Edison Research showed, a possible sign that the fast-spreading coronavirus helped increase Biden's appeal as a steady and experienced hand. In Washington, the state hit hardest by the coronavirus and the second-largest state to vote on Tuesday, eight in 10 voters voiced concern about the outbreak's effects, with a plurality supporting Biden, according to the polls.
Biden was powered to victory on Tuesday by strong support from a broad coalition of groups, including women, African Americans, those aged 45 and older, union members and all but the very liberal, according to exit polls.
In Michigan, he performed well with union members and working-class white voters, two groups that helped Sanders to an upset victory of Hillary Clinton in the state in 2016 but did not turn out as strongly for him this time despite Sanders’ economic populism and his call for universal healthcare.
Sanders won large majorities of voters under 30 years old in Michigan, Missouri and Mississippi, yet that group had a smaller impact on the results this year. Voters between 18 and 29 made up 12% of the Democratic primary electorate in Missouri, 10% in Mississippi and 15% in Michigan, down at least 4 percentage points in each state from 2016.
