Here’s proof that Joe Biden’s win in Florida tonight is fully legitimate, no matter what Bernie Sanders might say
Joe Biden has won the Florida primary tonight. The majority of votes have now been counted, and Biden is ahead by around forty points. The final margin could be a little larger or smaller, but won’t change much from here. Still, we’re going to hear some Bernie Sanders surrogates – and probably Donald Trump – claiming that Biden’s Florida victory was somehow illegitimate because the coronavirus crisis resulted in lower turnout.
Based on the results coming in, it turns out voter turnout in Florida is way up in 2020. It appears that hundreds of thousands more votes have been cast in the 2020 Florida Democratic primary than in the 2016 Democratic primary. Florida relies heavily on mail in voting and early voting, so this isn’t shocking to see. But what’s fascinating is why turnout is up.
Joe Biden has received the vast majority of the votes in Florida, meaning that the higher overall turnout was mostly a product of people voting in droves for Biden. Considering that Bernie Sanders is the only other person still in the race, it’s fair to presume that turnout was up because Biden is just that popular, and because Floridians really wanted to make sure Sanders didn’t win.
The bottom line is that the increased overall turnout in Florida means that Joe Biden’s decisive win is as legitimate as you can get – if his roughly forty point margin of victory wasn’t already enough evidence for you.
