Utah Super Tuesday Democratic Primary: Sanders Called As Winner

SALT LAKE CITY, UT —U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has been called as the winner of Utah's Super Tuesday Democratic primary with 35 percent of the unofficial vote total, while former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg split the centrist vote with 17 percent each, The Associated Press, The New York Times and other media report.

That's with 88 percent of ballots counted as of 7 a.m. local time Wednesday.

Sanders, the Vermont independent whose campaign of democratic socialism has energized the Democratic Party's progressive wing, had 32 percent of the vote with 45 percent of Utah's precincts reporting.

Utah Democrats are awarding 29 pledged delegates in Super Tuesday voting.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in second place with 20 percent of the vote, followed by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 15 percent and Biden with 13.5 percent when the race was called.

Sanders was leading in three polls heading into Utah's Super Tuesday voting, according to Real Clear Politics.

» Follow all the Super Tuesday voting on Patch.

» Follow Utah Super Tuesday primary results on The Spectrum.

Biden, who scored his first big victory in the 2020 presidential nominating contest Saturday in South Carolina, came in second in only one of those polls of likely Utah primary voters. Biden was trailing Michael Bloomberg, a former New York City mayor, by 13 percentage points in one poll and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts by 2 percentage points in another.

The polls were taken before Biden's big win in South Carolina, and before the departures of Pete Buttigieg, the young former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who cut into Biden's support among centrist Democrats, and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Both have thrown their support behind the former vice president, which could help him as he builds a firewall against Sanders' surging campaign. Moderate Democrats have worried that having a democratic socialist at the top of the ticket could hurt Democrats' chances in congressional and statehouse races.

Democrats voting in 14 primaries will award 1,357 pledged delegates, or 34 percent of the total needed to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other Super Tuesday primaries are in Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Democrats Abroad.

Committed delegates heading into Super Tuesday:
Sanders: 58
Biden: 50
Buttigieg: 26
Warren: 8
Klobuchar: 7