And the winner of the California Primary is…

The California Primary finally emerged with a victor after coming in on Super Tuesday last week being too early to call. Bernie Sanders has been declared the winner with 38% of the votes tallied to Biden’s 25% (as you can tell from the graphic that opens that blog post.).

However, it was an interesting climb for Joe Biden as he wasn’t expected to grab any delegates. Let me explain.

California was one off the states that kicked off with early voting, and  lasted for a couple of days. When it was all said and down, early projections showed Bernie Sanders with a substantial lead over his opponent, and Joe Biden wasn’t anywhere near the 15 percent threshold to receive delegates. That big lead over Joe Biden was supposed to give him a whopping 300 delegates. I believe Michael Bloomberg was a strong second-place showing.

That was before South Carolina changed everything.

The Clyburn endorsement sealed the deal and was enough to clinch Biden his first win in the election cycle. Then as candidates Pete Buttigeg and Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race, they also endorsed Biden. Even Beto O’ Rourke who was knocked out of the race early on also came out and endorsed him. Three more wins followed, and soon enough Biden was starting to gain traction as a viable candidate whe, a mere three weeks ago, his campaign was seen as all but dead.

By the time the in-person voting for the California primary began (and with the early-voting ballots not counted yet at that point), Biden garnered enough viability in California to surge him into a strong second place finish. I think early predictions before Super Tuesday had him at 11 percent. So 11 percent from three weeks ago to 25 percent today. Not a bad climb.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you divide up delegates.

And while we’re on the subject of California, this is the state that ultimately went to Hillary Clinton in 2016. As much as I thought change was on the horizon with the first African-American president transitioning to a first-female president, that ended up not happening.

It’s not a huge victory for Sanders, but more of a landslide. Heck, Biden got enough votes to push Bloomberg down to third place finish, so it was more of an uphill victory for him. His delegate count in the state went up from 0 to 162 with 96% of the votes counted.

Sanders received 202 as of this post (again, look at the photo)

Congrats to Sanders on his victory as well as man excellent out-of-the-blue comeback by Joe Biden.

As of now the delegate count are as follows (although it might change once voting in the remaining races are counted):

NEXT UP: The Northern Mariana Islands hold their primary tomorrow, but it won’t amount to much as six delegates are awarded. So basically, the delegate race won’t move an inch THAT much. (At least not until four states vote March 17, but more on that tomorrow folks)

And a change to report: Louisiana was one of the states scheduled to vote on April 4. Because of the Coronavirus scare, the state will now hold that election on June 20 — meaning it becomes the final contest of the election nomination cycle. I’ve heard the other states are doing some switcher when it comes to polling areas, but they are staying where they are.=.