5 things to watch for in Tuesday's Democratic primaries in 4 states

WASHINGTON — Despite the new and uncertain coronavirus climate, Joe Biden is looking to pad his lead in delegates over Bernie Sanders when four states crucial to the general election hold their Democratic presidential primaries on Tuesday.

There will be no major St. Patrick’s Day parades or political rallies on March 17 in Florida, Ohio, Illinois and Arizona as the candidates and election officials scramble to adjust to a world shutting down around them to avoid spreading COVID-19.

“There’s barely a pulse to this race, and it’s not because of coronavirus,” said University of Virginia politics professor Larry Sabato.

“Florida is going to be a massive Biden knockout,” Sabato said. “Ohio and Illinois are near-certain Biden states by healthy margins. But Arizona can be watched carefully” for how its Latinos vote.

All four states plan to go ahead with their primaries despite confusion over closing nursing-home polling places, resignations of election judges and Louisiana’s decision to postpone its April 4 primary until June 20.

Florida will be the biggest prize, with 219 delegates in play, followed by Illinois with 155, Ohio with 136 and Arizona with 62. Polls show Biden ahead in all four states. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton also bested Sanders in those states.

Here are four things to watch leading up to Tuesday’s primary.

Debate without cheer

Sanders and Biden conducted a stark debate Sunday night in grim times, Standing six feet apart in a studio without an audience, Sanders cited his Medicare-for-All proposal and Biden the Obama administration's Ebola virus response as they asserted they would have responded to coronavirus better than President Donald Trump. The lacked any light moments as Sanders attacked Biden on decades-old votes, and Biden questioned Sanders' ability to get his program passed. The two elderly white men did make an appeal to women — Biden declared his vice president pick would be a woman and Sanders said his likely would be. But it’s unlikely they persuaded each other’s followers to switch sides in Tuesday’s primaries.

Courting the kids

Biden has drawn a relative smattering of support among young voters, who have flocked to Sanders and his democratic socialist agenda. Biden can’t afford to lose their votes as Hillary Clinton did four years ago. He must show that he cares about their issues after seven youth-led groups issued a demand Thursday that he lay out his plans on climate change, immigration, education, gun violence and racial justice in the debate Sunday night. Ben Wessel, executive director of NextGen America, one of the groups making the demand, said, “Biden has a lot of work to do to get young people on board.”

Virtual campaigning

Biden and Sanders have canceled public rallies and fundraisers out of caution about the public’s health — and their health as members of the age 70-plus club who are most vulnerable to the virus. Both campaigns told their staffs on Thursday to start working from home, and Biden held a virtual town hall Friday afternoon. He also named a public health advisory committee to provide counsel to the campaign to ensure it is taking best practices to protect the health and safety of the candidate, staff and supporters, a campaign aide said. But it’s unclear what effect the lack of in-person events will have on the vote.

Who wins Latinos?

Sanders has built strong ties to Latinos since he lost his bid for the Democratic nomination in 2016, an effort that paid off in Nevada on Feb. 22 when he won half the Latino vote in a large, crowded field of candidates. Biden leads Sanders in Arizona 51% to 34% overall in the Univision/Arizona State University poll released Friday. But with an eye on the general election, the Latino vote will be watched closely. A Telemundo poll of Latino voters conducted by Mason-Dixon after Super Tuesday showed Biden up by 9 points in Florida but Sanders leading by 7 points in Arizona. “Hispanics are a critical, large part of Democratic turnout there [in Arizona],” Sabato said. “What do Biden’s inroads look that in this environment, given that Sanders won California, Utah and Colorado with the strong backing of Latino voters?”

Sanders’ Florida blunder

Sanders lost Florida by a 2-to-1 margin to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and he’s losing by nearly 3-to-1 now in the polling averages by the analytical website FiveThirtyEight. Sanders’ supporters are working hard to blunt the size of his loss to limit Biden's share of Florida’s delegates. But Sanders didn’t help his case with his praise — however justified — of the literacy program of Cuba’s former communist leader Fidel Castro, whose regime led thousands to leave for Florida. Xavier Suarez, the first Cuban-born mayor of Miami, said that praise lost Sanders the votes of Cuban exiles. “There is nothing positive you can say about the conditions in Cuba,” he told The Associated Press. “It's gonna be a massacre.”