Joe Biden Dominates South With African- Americans and Older Voters; Joe Biden Wins Alabama, North Carolina and Virginia Senator Bernie Sanders Wins Vermont; Senator Bernie Sanders Wins Colorado His Second Win of the Night
BLITZER: We have another major projection right now. Take a look at this CNN projects that Joe Biden will win the Democratic Presidential Primary in the state of Tennessee where there are 64 delegates at stake. Biden wins Tennessee that is the CNN projection. So far Biden has won Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, doing incredibly well in the south following South Carolina on Saturday. Biden wins once again in Tennessee. Let's go over to John King. Take a closer look.</s>BLITZER: A big picture right now Biden is doing well, but we're still waiting for Texas, the second biggest prize, and California, the biggest prize.</s>KING: The biggest prize and we're going to have to wait a bit on California. A, for the polls close tonight then B for the count tonight, and then let me give you C especially at the congressional districts level. It could take days to get the final results in California. We'll have the big headlines stay with us we'll have the headlines a big headlines in a couple hours. You mentioned big prize number 2, the state of Texas. We're up to 30 percent. Notice much more of the map filling in since the last time we visited the state of Texas. Senator Sanders again stretching it out a little bit. 30 percent reporting, 29 percent if you round up, 23 percent if you round up just shy of 40,000 vote lead there. Sander, Biden and Bloomberg in play for viability state wide above 15 percent don't count Senator Warren out that just yet by 14 percent if you round up again we're only at 30 percent of the vote in Texas, number two prize of the night. 220 plus delegates right there. You see the mix, you see Bloomberg let's just check in on a couple of counties. These are very small counties, Mitchell County a tiny slice of the population but you just look you've got some Bloomberg on the map you got lot of Sanders in the map a lot of Biden on the map too as we go through it. I just want to check in the midst one of the things that were interesting here is that in the big urban centers, large population centers Joe Biden is ahead. Dallas County, Dallas and the suburbs around it he is ahead, but note how close it is in the major population centers. Lead for Biden still a 5 percent there so we've got to ways to go. You come down to the number one population area in Texas which is Houston, Harris County and the suburbs going out again Biden ahead but very, very close. So then you move to some other places. You go to Austin, which are both a liberal stronghold and a college town. This is a strength for Senator Sanders here a much bigger lead here. So while Biden is leading in the urban areas and the suburbs right around them. It's very competitive you can move to more liberal areas and college towns to see that play out there. I want to just take you over to Tennessee we just called it a few moments ago. I just want to show you something in Tennessee that's interesting. Biden has the lead here. We've now called this race. Sanders second, Bloomberg third. We haven't seen a lot of this tonight, Wolf. I just want to show you something as we go through this right here. If you look where Bloomberg is winning in the state, you see those counties look where he's coming in second. See all that Biden blue? Add in a third more Biden blue here. There is a possibility at the end of the night Joe Biden might say, you know Mayor Bloomberg in the state of Tennessee, you cost me some delegates. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: He might say that. And all right, we have another major projection right now. Take a look at this CNN now projects that Bernie Sanders will win the Democratic Presidential Primary in Colorado where 67 delegates are at stake. Bernie Sanders the winner in Colorado. So far tonight we projected he wins Colorado and his home state of Vermont. So far we projected that Joe Biden wins Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. That's where it stands right now. Let's walk back to John King one more time, taking a look at the bigger picture as we see it.</s>KING: Right, as we start to move, now we have Colorado, we're just waiting on Utah and California where they're still voting. But as you mentioned we've called Colorado. Let's just take a look at what we have so far. Votes coming in very quickly here Denver and the suburbs, if you win big in Denver and the suburbs, you're pulling away. Look at all the Sanders blue when we come in here let's pop this out a little bit Denver County a very healthy lead for Bernie Sanders 41 to 24 for Mayor Bloomberg Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden down here. This is one of the places where you do see Joe Biden had to focus on South Carolina, didn't have a lot of money spend on Super Tuesday. Did not spend time campaigning in Colorado and he got a bounce in those southern states and the states over there. This is a place where you see if you don't campaign, you pay a price for it. Sanders, who did very well here four years ago winning, Bloomberg Warren again that will help for her state what's been hard to find places she is viable to look for delegates. You just stretch it out I just want to wander around a little bit and see. Big lead there, big lead there, Arapahoe County there another lead for Senator Sanders. Denver and the suburbs is where the action is in Colorado in terms of population centers. Jefferson County here very critical to the swing vote statewide Senator Sanders running it up. You just pull it out and you look it's pretty obvious right there some Bloomberg counties right here along the Kansas border. One Biden County up here along the Wyoming border tiny population center so you see it, it's very impressive for Senator Sanders. Just to go back and show you 2016, he won the state quite handily. You come back to 2020. The question is, is it a trend? In the sense that Joe Biden, Sanders wins in Vermont, Biden currently leading in Maine not but 94 votes so stay tight. We're going to keep going through Maine. Biden leading in Massachusetts, 14,000 votes and change there, but we're only at 16 percent you see all the opening. We just got last time we were here we had no vote from Boston just a tiny slice from Boston. Look at the competitive Biden ahead there, but early on, competitive here in Massachusetts. The point I was trying to make early, though, is we do see Biden performing well in the east in through these southern states and across to Arkansas and even to Oklahoma. The question for Bernie Sanders is Joe Biden starts off with a strong night here. Sanders is counting on Texas, Colorado, Utah and California to more than even the night out?</s>KING: Especially when you get out to California and the biggest prize. Anytime you hear Wolf I'm just going to keep checking here 31 percent again Senator Sanders 38,000 vote lead. You're optimistic in the Sanders Head Quarters one thing you're think about that remember tonight is all about delegates, right? Democrats have proportional rules we are talking about congressional districts in Texas it is state Senate districts. How they do it after the statewide vote? But if you look right here that's good you're leading with 28, 29 percent but the competitive nature of this means the delegates are going to be split and so the second biggest prize and you are going to have to split some here. Sanders was hoping for a bigger Texas win. He may yet get it. We're only at 28 percent. But one of the things to watch because of the Democratic Party--</s>BLITZER: Show us once again, John, who is winning in the biggest population, Senators in Texas?</s>KING: In Texas, you can look at this way. Number one you can just look at the population. Where do the people live? You see right here, you see the bigger circles down here? You see the different shades too, right you see the shades. But the biggest circles here that's the biggest population's area that's Houston, Harris County and the fast growing suburbs around it. Dallas and the suburbs around it are number two. That's one way to look at it. Where the people live the larger the circle the bigger population center and then you see the candidates' colors Bloomberg is purple, light blue is Sanders, the darker blue is Biden. That's one way to look at it or you just zoom in say hello and take a look at it. Harris County again Houston, if you haven't been to Houston in the last ten years, go visit. It's a lot different than three weeks ago let alone ten years ago. It just continues to grow. It's one of the fastest growing most dynamic fastest changing places in America. It is fascinating place to visit. Look at this just look at this fight. For one of the most dynamic pieces of America, you have a dynamic fight right here 25 percent to 25 percent round them up, 26 percent to 26 percent right now. So a Biden lead here, Bloomberg competitive, Senator Warren not as much. But you have Houston here. This county is sprawling if you know Harris County. You get miles away from Houston, you're still in Harris County and you're watching it play out. It's great to watch there. And again if you come down here, we haven't seen these votes in earlier. You come down here smaller counties here but Biden ahead Corpus Christi is here. Biden with a more healthy lead here, down here, and you come down around and look for some more of it. Right along the border, a little more Bloomberg here. Thing I'm waiting for is up here again, Senator Sanders was very much hoping for a sweep right up through here in the border areas of South Texas, a Latino community organization. Again Beto O'Rourke did come on for team Biden at the last minute. Let's see if it makes a difference here. Julian Castro was for Elizabeth Warren. We'll see if in his area as well, San Antonio and up this we'll see if that makes a difference as well, but at the moment, 31 percent, Senator Sanders with that lead but again a place where we're going to share the delegates because of the closeness of it. We'll just pop through some others while we're here. And one of the places I wanted to go look at before is to this is Amy Klobuchar just dropped out of the race. Her state Minnesota is on the ballot tonight. See this green? That's Amy Klobuchar. Now there was early voting in some of these states that's likely were good source of this voting is as well. But you look at this right here, and this is up on the iron range. These are small or less populated areas. These are the six largest up here in St. Louis County up here. You see Amy Klobuchar running ahead and it's a hundred of votes 228 to 256 so I'm not making too much of this but just looking at the idea that you get out late right before your state votes. It had early voting. She was just back there the other night. If you come more into the population centers though, Joe Biden winning in the Minneapolis area, but again, it's close. Look at the tight race there. Senator Sanders just had a late rally in Minnesota as well. Nothing across in St. Paul we don't have that yet. You keep moving around here, you just see in a state 75 delegates. It's not as big as Texas, it is nowhere near as big as California it's not even as big as North Carolina or Virginia, but 75 delegates matter on a night that all about delegates. So how would they be split up here? Joe Biden would be happy to come out of Minnesota with a win tonight that would be a bit of a surprise Senator Sanders there at 35 percent, Senator Warren viable here in Minnesota. We'll see.</s>BLITZER: Let's go to Maine.</s>KING: Let's go to Maine. Minnesota across to Maine we're touring America tonight because this one is a big one it is coast to coast. Up to 24 percent this has been a slow count Joe Biden holding this lead, but 156 votes. Again, we have a number of states that are giving us a bit of a seesaw tonight. A very close race has just changed again to 158 votes. Hang around Wolf, things changing here in the neighborhood. It's 158 votes again, you get back into the proportionality here Elizabeth Warren right at the cusp, Mayor Bloomberg below it.</s>BLITZER: Are you surprised Biden, at least right now, only 158 votes with a quarter of the vote in there Biden is leading right now in Maine and Massachusetts?</s>KING: The conversation a week ago or even 72 hours ago, would have been that Maine would go for Bernie Sanders, or maybe, maybe Elizabeth Warren if she were viable in the neighborhood. But we do start - we do see evidence, you can call it the South Carolina effect, I call it more like the moment of choosing. That after the South Carolina Primary with the drop outs of Senator Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Mayor Buttigieg, the Democrats seem to be framing it in their own minds as a two candidate race. That doesn't mean you know Senator Warren is competitive here Mayor Bloomberg is competitive in some places but South Carolina win and then the remarkable 72 hours, 48 hours after it when people dropped out and consolidated around Biden has definitely changed the dynamic.</s>BLITZER: All right, so let's look at the big picture right now where Biden has either won the state or is leading in state as opposed to Bernie Sanders who has won the state or leading in the state right now.</s>KING: Right, so you come off this. These are the states we have called.</s>KING: These are states that we've called. You come in here and you see the leadings as well. If you want to use it out here you see now South Carolina was not tonight. Of the states that were tonight, I'm going to draw neatly around that if can as neat as I can. I could have continued all the way out here. This red is Biden leading up here, leading up here and leading up here. We have not called all the states but one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, right? Nine,--</s>BLITZER: Out of 14.</s>KING: Right, as you got nine, nine out of 14 but we're not done yet nine leading right now so if you want to check this, take a screen shot of it if you want come back in an hour we'll see if it holds up? So 9 out of the 14 if you do that so if you want to switch coasts here Bernie Sanders is winning his home state of Vermont. Bernie Sanders is leading in Texas. We have called Colorado for Bernie Sanders. So he has three. That gets you to 12 there is 13 and there is 14. And Mayor Bloomberg gets American Samoa. So Bloomberg gets one if you want to pick another color here. There we go Bloomberg gets one.</s>BLITZER: Right, but I just want to point out not all states are created equal. The biggest prize is Texas and California.</s>KING: The biggest prize is right here. We don't know that at all yet. The second biggest prize is right here and again just for the math at home, 1344 delegates at play tonight 48 percent of them in two states California and Texas. Again North Carolina don't under count it. You want all you can get. The fact that Joe Biden started off tonight with the swath here is great for Joe Biden. The question is as we go through can he sustain that and the longer you stay the more I'm going to check so there we go just checking again still at 31 percent there and let's just check up here 18 percent here. Biden opening this up you see that again it's not a ton, really at 18 percent. But it has been moving up there. And you move back over as well. Remember we spent a lot of time in Arkansas back in the--</s>BLITZER: You and I did.</s>KING: That was a long time ago. Little Rock was not in last time we checked there Joe Biden with the lead there Mayor Bloomberg relatively competitive here. Arkansas one of the states that Bloomberg had hoped if went back a week or two to win tonight. Again this is evidence of the South Carolina bounce to consolidation around Joe Biden helping him in the state of Arkansas tonight as we look at the results where we are now but still some counting to do.</s>BLITZER: We're doing a lot of counting right now. Anderson, over to you.</s>COOPER: Yes, let's go from micro on each of the states kind of big picture macro. David, where are things?</s>DAVID AXELROD, FORMER OBAMA SENIOR ADVISER: Well, I mean there's more evidence of how dramatically this race moved in 48 hours. Now this Colorado result is really interesting because they have a big mail in program. So half a million Democratic votes arrived before Pete Buttigieg who was doing getting some votes out there quit. And another 100,000 before Amy Klobuchar quit the race. And so Bernie Sanders and Bloomberg probably did better in Colorado than they would have if more of the votes came in on Election Day. The other thing is you look at states we're looking at the struggle going on in Maine and Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Bernie Sanders has got 64 percent of the vote in Maine in 2016. He got 62 percent of the vote in Minnesota. He got 52 percent of the vote in Oklahoma. And the question has always been how much of that vote came to him as a result of antipathy towards Hillary Clinton and how much of it came to him on the strength of his own message? And we're getting something of a test of this here.</s>COOPER: You've pointed out before that he has been underperforming his 2016. Obviously it's different by near contest.</s>AXELROD: I mean I don't want to understate it because he is going to get a lot of delegates tonight. When California comes in he figures to be a big winner there. We don't know - one thing is clear. This is going to be a much closer race than anticipated a week ago when people were expecting a big Bernie Sanders win. And so there are two things that we want to watch come in. Will Biden be close to Sanders? And the second was where would Bloomberg finish? And both those are answering in a way that should give the Biden camp encouragement tonight.</s>NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: We saw I think Biden start to do well in South Carolina among some of these white working class voters of those previous contests and Iowa and New Hampshire he wasn't really doing well among white voters. So now you see some of that happening versus in South Carolina and then in some of these other states. The whole purpose for Bloomberg to be in this race was eating into Biden's strength with white voters also with African-American voters. A lot of those ads were targeted to African-American voters and you see that faltering tonight in some of these states throughout the south and some other states as well.</s>MCINTOSH: Democrats can be happy with three dynamics that we're seeing tonight. One is that it seems like it was not possible to come in with just a billion dollars, skip the first four contests. Disrespect the voters in the process. And get the presidency.</s>MCINTOSH: So it seems like we put that to bed which is lovely. The second one is all of the people who are deciding who to vote for in the last couple days. This very nervous electorate. Everybody wants to beat Trump. Everybody knows that's an existential threat to the country. We have to do it. Nobody is sure how to do it? What that means is that for the large part these are not entrenched voters for one particular candidate. If you just decided in the last three days who you were going to support--</s>COOPER: Or three hours.</s>MCINTOSH: --or three hours. Your support invaluable, it could go to somebody who you didn't cast your vote for. That's frankly in a field this divided what we're going to need in November.</s>GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL AANALYST: And that's a question for Joe Biden. If he comes out of tonight doing very well and I think we can see that that is already occurring. I think the question is whether there's some sugar high here and puts a lot of pressure on him to perform at the next debate which happens to be a CNN debate but to perform at that next debate. Not a plug but sure.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You wouldn't do that.</s>BORGER: --but to perform at the next debate because one of the reasons people decide late is because they're trying to figure out who can beat Donald Trump. It's not because they love this person so much. They want this person to beat Donald Trump. And the debate is going to matter to them when they see him so they don't have buyers' remorse after wards. One other point I want to make is what is going on inside the Bloomberg camp tonight? And Jeff Zeleny and you can talk about how it feels to before you get out. Sorry.</s>ANDREW YANG (D) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Cold.</s>COOPER: Andrew, do you think Bloomberg - you talked about before he's a data guy he is going to look at the numbers. I mean the numbers not good.</s>YANG: I think Mike is going to have a tough position tomorrow. And I think the numbers are going to drive him in a particular direction. But I do want to say that Mike Bloomberg is going to be a big reason why the Democrats win in the fall if they do win because he has over 2,400 staffers and 200 offices.</s>COOPER: And you said his data operation is very impressive.</s>YANG: People think of Mike Bloomberg as a Wall Street guy. He's actually more of tech and data guy. His New York HQ is like a spaceship come to life. His election dash board is like a miniature version of that. It's incredible what he has already assembled. He is going to put that to work for the nominee in the fall. If the Democrats win he is going to be a big reason why because his operation is much more robust and sophisticated than anything the DNC has.</s>MCAULIFFE: His operation can move quickly. He can do an IE the next day. If he wanted to support a candidate he could transfer all over the ID every single one of those people who works for him could go work for some other.</s>MCAULIFFE: The Biden campaign who is need--</s>COOPER: What's an ID is?</s>MCAULIFFE: We've needed to build up the infrastructure. Whatever he is going to do but I mean, for Biden who I think is needed help on the ground game and building the organizers this would be an overnight--</s>COOPER: But explain what an Independent Expenditure is.</s>MCAULIFFE: You know you wouldn't be directly affiliated with the campaign. He would be an Independent Expenditure Mike Bloomberg can spend as much money as he wants, he would fully fund all the staff all the offices. But they would be there obviously working on behalf of Biden.</s>HENDERSON: Or Sanders if Sanders is the nominee. Would he do the same thing?</s>MCAULIFFE: He could do whatever he--</s>COOPER: He said he would.</s>MCAULIFFE: Michael Bloomberg wants to beat Trump as much as anyone if not more than other people. And he has good ads--</s>EL-SAYED: I want to the state of the race. I mean, we got to almost the end of February and had eight Democrats in the race. The fact that this is a fluid race shouldn't surprise us. This has been one of the most loaded longest campaigns where we would have seen the field little down far earlier. The interesting question I think is we raise Bloomberg. Another interesting question is where did voters who left Amy and Pete go? Which I think is really interesting question. And then also where is the piece of the vote that Warren is earning. Where is that coming from? Who would that go to otherwise? And I think that there are a lot of questions if we sort of boil this down to a race in two lanes the progressive lane and the more centrist lane. Who is taking votes from where and what are the implications on a night we're delivering 34 percent the delegates?</s>AXELROD: Ads you were speaking we're looking at numbers on the screen, Joe Biden a week ago was nowhere in the state of Minnesota. Amy Klobuchar got out and he's now leading in the state of Minnesota. He was nowhere in the State of Massachusetts. He's now leading in the State of Massachusetts. So--</s>BORGER: And nowhere in Texas.</s>AXELROD: And so it is I think a fair surmise at least in those places Klobuchar getting out and Buttigieg getting out was helpful to him.</s>YANG: I just want to say there two big scenarios. Let's say Bloomberg does get out. There is a scenario where he endorses Biden relatively promptly and then this massive operation goes to Biden and then there is a world where he says I'll wait for the nominee. And support that nominee.</s>COOPER: Let's go to Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, thanks very much. Its 10:00 so we have a key race alert right now. Utah--