(The Center Square) – Former Vice President Joe Biden is projected to win the Michigan Democratic primary over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
As of 12:15 a.m. eastern, Biden held a 53 to 38 percent advantage over Sanders with 85 percent of votes counted.
Michigan is the big prize in the Tuesday primary with 125 delegates of the 1,191 necessary to secure the presidential nomination.
Michigan is one of the “mini Tuesday” primaries held on March 10, featuring races in six states one week after March 3’s Super Tuesday contest. The other states holding primary elections on the same date as Michigan include Missouri, Washington, Idaho, North Dakota and Mississippi.
Biden is also the projected winner in Mississippi and Missouri. He entered the Michigan primary 19 points ahead of Sanders in the polls.
Biden’s Michigan victory occurs on the same day he participated in a heated exchange with an electrical worker union (IBEW) member at the site of a new Fiat Chrysler automotive plant in Detroit. The worker challenged Biden’s stance on banning gun control, prompting the former Delaware senator to respond, “Don’t be such a horse’s a*s” and claim the man was “full of sh*t.”
Biden also threatened the man if he persisted: “Don't tell me that, pal, or I'm going to go outside with you, man."
Because Michigan is an open primary state, voters do not have to declare a party affiliation. As a result, an undetermined number of Republicans were expected to vote for Sanders in order to slow Biden’s primary momentum.
Their reasoning, in short, is that Sanders would be easier for Republican incumbent President Donald Trump to defeat in November’s general election. That strategy – unofficially called “Operation Chaos” – seems to have failed.
Ron Brown is a Midland resident who said his vote for Sanders was a defensive effort “to create as much chaos in the Democratic Party as possible,” he told The Center Square.
“And for the entertainment value of a brokered Democratic convention,” he added.
Joel Crookston, who lives in the Kalamazoo area, has a different take on the difference between Sanders and Biden.
“I’m voting for Bernie Sanders as an independent who leans right,” he told The Center Square. “Biden scares me as much as Trump scares me.”
* This article was originally published here
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