Election News

The presidential calendar is quiet Tuesday, but we will have results for the special primary election in Wisconsin's 7th congressional district.  The seat has been vacant since former Rep. Sean Duffy (R) resigned this past September to deal with family health issues. 

The nominees will meet in the general election on May 12, with the winner serving out the remainder of Duffy's term.  The seat, along with all others in the U.S. House, will be contested again in November.

The 7th district is the largest by land area in Wisconsin, covering the mostly rural northern third of the state.  Voters narrowly supported Mitt Romney over Barack Obama in 2012, but swung sharply for Donald Trump in 2016; the president won here by 20 points over Hillary Clinton.  Duffy won reelection in 2016 and 2018 by similar margins. The general election is seen as Likely to Safe Republican.

It was an active Tuesday for Super Tuesday polling.  We saw polls from six states, including three of the four largest in terms of pledged delegates available that day. The polls in Virginia, Oklahoma, Maine and Vermont were the first we've seen this year.

There were also several national polls and one from New Jersey, which holds its primary in June.  You can view a running list of the most recent polls here.

Super Tuesday is two weeks from today, March 3. Over one-third of the Democratic Party's 3,979 pledged delegates will be up for grabs across 16 contests.

Mike Bloomberg surged into 2nd place with 19% of the vote, according to a new national poll from NPR/PBS/Marist released Tuesday morning. This showing has qualified him for Wednesday's Democratic debate in Las Vegas.

Bernie Sanders continues to lead the field, surpassing 30% support in a national poll for the first time this cycle.  Joe Biden was 3rd, with 15%, with Elizabeth Warren at 12%. The shift in the state of the race in recent weeks is nicely illustrated by comparing these results with those from the previous NPR/PBS/Marist poll from mid-December.

The Road to 270 is a weekly column leading up to the presidential election. Each installment is dedicated to understanding one state’s political landscape and how that might influence which party will win its electoral votes in 2020. We’ll do these roughly in order of expected competitiveness, moving toward the most intensely contested battlegrounds as election day nears. 

The Road to 270 will be published every Monday. The column is written by Seth Moskowitz, a 270toWin elections and politics contributor. Contact Seth at s.k.moskowitz@gmail.com or on Twitter @skmoskowitz.

Kentucky

Kentucky is all but certain to vote for Donald Trump in November. It has voted Republican at the presidential level - with few exceptions - since 1956. The president carried the state by 30% in 2016, continuing a fairly consistent trend of increasing GOP margins in each election since 2000. 

Given this inevitability, the second half of this piece is dedicated to the boogeyman of the left, Mitch McConnell. Democrats revile the cunning effectiveness of the Senate Majority Leader and hope, perhaps naively, to oust him in November.

Polling from Nevada is very infrequent; this is the first we've seen since the middle of January.

Bernie Sanders leads Joe Biden by seven points in The Nevada Poll^TM, conducted by WPA Intelligence, that was released Friday.  Sanders saw 25% support to Biden's 18%; both candidates are polling statewide above the 15% threshold for winning delegates.  Also in double-digits are the four other candidates actively campaigning here:  Elizabeth Warren (13%), Tom Steyer (11%), Pete Buttigieg (10%) and Amy Klobuchar (10%). 

Sen. Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, narrowly beating out Pete Buttigieg. Sen. Amy Klobuchar came in a strong third. The three split the state's 24 delegates.  

As of Wednesday morning, with 91% of precincts reporting, Sanders held a 1.6% lead over Buttigieg, with each getting about 25% of the statewide vote. Klobuchar, at about 20%, easily outperformed her polling numbers.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden finished well back, each seeing under 10% support.

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is dropping out of the presidential race. Bennet had positioned himself as a moderate in the large Democratic field, but that translated into little support.  He was averaging at less than 1% nationally, and was seeing similar results in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.

Enterpreneur Andrew Yang ended his pursuit of the Democratic nomination on Tuesday. Yang had made a name for himself via his proposal of a $1,000 monthly universal basic income to help offset the reality that automation was significantly displacing workers. Yang believed this environment led to Donald Trump's victory in 2016.

The first New Hampshire primary was held in March, 1916. In 1920, it moved to the front of the primary calendar; the state has maintained this first-in-the-nation status for the past 100 years. 

Three small towns in New Hampshire cast their votes overnight, just after midnight. If you are viewing this page prior to 7:00 PM ET, when polls close in much of the state, those are the results you will see.  Results are expected shortly after 7:00 PM and will automatically update on this page. The final polls close at 8:00 PM.

Democratic Primary

There has been no shortage of Democratic polling in advance of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. The results have been fairly consistent in recent days, with Sanders and Buttigieg running 1-2. Amy Klobuchar has seen gains, while Joe Biden has been fading. If the polls are accurate, Biden, Klobuchar and Warren should finish 3rd to 5th in some order; it remains to be seen if any (or all) of them are able to meet the 15% threshold for delegates.

For the Republicans, Donald Trump is averaging 83.3%, with former Gov. Bill Weld of neighboring Massachusetts at 9.5%.  22 delegates will be allocated proportionately to candidates getting 10% or higher. The suspense, if any, is whether Weld will cross that 10% threshold.