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Results undercut Bloomberg’s big-spending strategy

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*Biden won Texas, AP projected, and swept the South. But Sanders won California, the biggest Super Tuesday state, setting up a fight for the nomination.

Joe Biden notched an impressive string of Super Tuesday victories, while Bernie Sanders won delegate-rich California, as the pair broke away from the field in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The results in Tuesday contests undercut the big-spending strategy of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had hinged his candidacy on performing well in March contests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s dismal performance ratcheted up pressure on her to prove she still has a viable path to the nomination after losing her home state of Massachusetts to Mr. Biden.

The Top Takeaways From Super Tuesday

The former vice president also won in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, continuing his strength in Southern states, and scored victories in Oklahoma and Minnesota, home to his former rival, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who gave him a key late endorsement this week.

Mr. Sanders also won his home state of Vermont as well as Utah and Colorado, the Associated Press projected. Mr. Bloomberg, who had vastly outspent Mr. Biden in some states only to lose to him, won the territory of American Samoa, according to the AP. He appeared likely to pick up a much smaller number of Democratic delegates than the two front-runners.

The other big delegate prize, Texas, remained too close to call late Tuesday. While Mr. Sanders was declared the winner in California shortly after polls closed, the final allocation of the Golden State’s 415 pledged delegates might not be decided for days because of the large number of mail-in ballots. Delegates are distributed on a proportional basis at the district and state level, but the share awarded depends on how many candidates meet the threshold of 15% of the vote.

Speaking at a victory rally in Vermont ahead of the results, Mr. Sanders said he was “cautiously optimistic” about California and noted he had performed well in Texas.

“When we began this race, everybody said it couldn’t be done. But tonight I tell you with absolute confidence, we’re going to win the Democratic nomination,” Mr. Sanders said.

Mr. Biden benefited from the momentum his campaign generated since his South Carolina victory on Saturday, exit polls published by CNN showed. About half of Democratic primary voters in Virginia and Oklahoma said they made their decision within the past few days, and Mr. Biden won roughly six in 10 of those voters in both states. Late-deciders represented a smaller proportion of the vote in North Carolina and Alabama, but he also had the largest share of those voters there.

“It’s a good night. It’s a good night,” Mr. Biden said to cheers at a rally in Los Angeles, adding: “They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing.” On Tuesday, one-third of the party’s pledged delegates were allocated to the party’s summer convention.

He credited Ms. Klobuchar for his win in her home state, where exit polls showed about half of Democratic primary voters made their decisions in the last few days and the largest share went for Mr. Biden.

Ahead of the contests, Ms. Warren and Mr. Bloomberg signaled they didn’t think any candidate could capture enough delegates to win the nomination outright, instead viewing their path as coming from a contested convention.

But early signs indicated that Mr. Bloomberg’s big-spending strategy hadn’t paid off in some states, and an adviser said the former mayor would be reassessing his investment in the coming days. For example, the billionaire’s campaign spent about $18 million—about 50 times as much as Mr. Biden and his allies put in—on TV and radio ads in Virginia. A similar story played out in North Carolina, where Mr. Bloomberg spent about $17 million to Mr. Biden’s roughly $466,000.

Speaking to supporters late Tuesday in West Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Bloomberg said, “No matter how many delegates we win tonight, we have done something no one else thought was possible. In just three months, we’ve gone from just 1% in the polls to being a contender for the Democratic nomination.”

For her part, Ms. Warren largely ignored Tuesday’s results in an appearance in Detroit, sticking to her stump speech. She was expected to return to Massachusetts on Wednesday.

Mr. Sanders had a head-start on collecting delegates and momentum by winning in New Hampshire and Nevada and achieving a virtual tie in Iowa. He also painted the coalescing of other candidates around Mr. Biden as an effort by the political establishment to hamstring his candidacy.

Mr. Biden’s campaign was boosted in recent days by the endorsements of Ms. Klobuchar, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas.

Mr. Biden, who said he had raised about $15 million in three days, placed a new $1.5 million in TV ads in Michigan, Missouri and Mississippi, which will hold contests later this month.

Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Bloomberg, who has spent more than a half-billion dollars of his own money on his campaign, said he wasn’t planning on dropping out, despite Mr. Biden gaining endorsements from the more centrist candidates.

“Have you asked Joe whether he’s going to drop out?” Mr. Bloomberg said. The former mayor, who skipped the four February contests, had poured more than $170 million into advertising in Super Tuesday states and spent tens of millions more on an extensive ground operation for those contests.

The rallying behind Mr. Biden and clearing of competitors in the party’s moderate wing played into the decision-making of Jennifer Felix, a 51-year-old real-estate agent from Alexandria, Va.

At her polling place in the city’s Old Town section, Ms. Felix said she voted for Mr. Biden after seeing the party come together in recent days.

“I think Joe Biden has the experience, and I’m looking forward to who he picks as vice president,” she said, noting that she considered Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders to be too divisive.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sanders’s economic message appealed to other voters. In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Mar Vista, Anya McGrath said she voted for the Vermont senator because she believed he was “more in touch with people like me, middle America.”

“He speaks for underserved people. I’m kind of all about getting money out of the hands of billionaires and getting it back to the people,” said Ms. McGrath, a 36-year-old preschool teacher.

One question that loomed was the effect of early voting on the outcome, with more than 1.4 million Democratic ballots in California and another million in Texas cast before last weekend.

When many voters cast early ballots, Mr. Sanders was riding high off his early victories, Mr. Buttigieg was close on his heels—and Mr. Biden’s campaign was sputtering. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer, who spent more than $210 million on advertising, including a heavy investment in California, was also in the race until he dropped out Saturday.

As Democrats fought for Super Tuesday primacy, President Trump, who faces no serious opposition in the Republican primaries, took to Twitter Tuesday night to tout his wins. As each state was declared, Mr. Trump tweeted “THANK YOU” alongside a picture of himself giving a double thumbs up.