Little is going as planned in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. In parts of Florida and Arizona, some polling locations were unable to open in the morning after volunteers refused to show up because of worries about the coronavirus.
In Ohio, the opposite happened: The governor unilaterally postponed voting on Monday night, but only after his squabble with a county judge had sown confusion. So on Tuesday morning, some voters arrived at polling sites ready to cast their ballots, only to find those locations closed.
Most bets are off when it comes to Tuesday’s elections in Florida, Arizona and Illinois — all of which are proceeding with caution, enforcing hygienic and social-distancing procedures at every location. Come Tuesday evening, it’s possible no state will even be able to report sufficient results to declare a winner.
But if they do, the chances are that it will be a good night for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Not only is he surging in national polls, but these three states also hold closed elections, meaning voters registered as independents — typically among Mr. Sanders’s greatest supporters — can’t participate.
Here’s a rundown of what polling tells us about the matchup between Mr. Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.
Arizona (67 delegates)
A few weeks ago, Arizona seemed like a promising state for Mr. Sanders. Latino voters, a strong demographic bloc for him, are expected to make up a quarter to a third of Democratic voters in the state, and even among white voters Mr. Sanders has generally performed well in Western states.
But two polls released on Monday showed Mr. Biden way ahead. A Monmouth University survey put him up on Mr. Sanders by 20 percentage points, and an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll gave him a 17-point lead.
In the Monmouth poll, Mr. Sanders’s lead among Latinos was just seven points, and he trailed Mr. Biden by double digits among low-income voters. For Mr. Biden, both polls showed him winning by a two-to-one margin among white voters, and by even more than that among older voters.
Perhaps troubling for Mr. Biden, though, is that he is still losing liberal voters by a meaningful margin. This is a crucial part of any Democratic presidential nominee’s base, and he would need to recapture most of it in order to win in November.
Florida (219 delegates)
Florida is one of the biggest states on the primary calendar — and it also has one of the most Biden-friendly demographics on the map.
Florida’s voters skew older, putting an added emphasis on Mr. Sanders’s greatest weakness: those 45 and older. And its sizable Hispanic population is dominated by conservatives, including many who fled the Castro regime in Cuba.
A Univision poll released Monday found Mr. Biden up on Mr. Sanders by 63 percent to 25 percent among likely Democratic voters in Florida. The former vice president held an eight-point lead among Latinos. Another recent survey, by the University of North Florida, showed Mr. Biden with a much wider margin among Latinos.
The Univision poll also contained some warning signs for the Democrats come November: It found that 54 percent of all registered voters in Florida approved of the job President Trump is doing, and in a theoretical head-to-head matchup, Mr. Trump had 48 percent support to 45 percent for Mr. Biden.
Illinois (155 delegates)
The most recent poll of Illinois conducted by live interviewers (still the industry standard) was done over a month ago. Back then, Mr. Sanders was considered the Democratic front-runner, and he held the lead in that survey.
But while quality polls have been scarce since then, the average of what’s available suggests that Mr. Biden now has a considerable advantage.
Over a quarter of Democratic primary voters in Illinois are expected to be African-Americans, and far fewer will be Latino — a demographic makeup that plays to Mr. Biden’s strengths.