Joe Biden Wins Maine Democratic Presidential Primary

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks while standing with supporters at a campaign event at the W Los Angeles hotel in Los Angeles, California, on March 4, 2020. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won Maine’s Democratic presidential primary, adding to his list of wins over Super Tuesday.

With 98 percent of votes in, Biden has 34.1 percent, ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 32.9 percent. The Associated Press called the race for Biden on Wednesday afternoon.

Biden claimed victory in the New England state on Wednesday afternoon, writing on Twitter: “Thank you, Maine!”

Sanders, who won Maine with 64 percent in 2016, was forecasted to win the state leading up to Super Tuesday.

This is the 10th state that Biden has won or is projected to win out of the 14 states that held Democratic primaries on Super Tuesday.

He has won or is projected to win the Democratic primaries in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, as well as Minnesota and Massachusetts—Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s home state. The Associated Press also called Biden’s victory in Texas in the early hours of Wednesday, after a close race between Biden and Sanders.

Sanders is projected to win in California, the state with the most number of delegates on offer—415—on Super Tuesday. The Vermont senator also won in his home state, as well as Colorado and Utah, according to The Associated Press.

On Wednesday, Sanders told Democratic voters that they face a serious choice in picking between him and Biden.

“What this campaign is, I think, is increasingly about is: which side are you on,” Sanders said at a press conference in Burlington, Vermont.

Sanders said that his campaign is about taking on “the entire corporate establishment,” including insurance, drug, and oil companies, and “the entire political establishment,” which has been “working frantically to defeat us.”

Biden, by contrast, is running a campaign with support from both establishments, Sanders alleged. Biden wouldn’t bring about the changes needed in the country, he said.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination after winning no states except for the U.S. Territory of American Samoa over Super Tuesday, despite reportedly spending more than $500 million of his own money on campaign advertising.

Bloomberg is now endorsing Biden for the Democratic nomination. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) also endorsed Biden after ending their bids in recent days.

Over a third of delegates, or around 34 percent, were up for grabs in Tuesday’s Democratic nominating contests—1,357 out of a total of 3,979 pledged delegates nationwide. A Democratic candidate needs to win at least 1,991 delegates to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot by the party’s national convention in July.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.