SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Bernie Sanders decisively won the Democratic nominating contest Tuesday in Utah following a day of voting that set a record for turnout in a presidential primary.
The Vermont senator prevailed by drawing from a deep well of support with left-leaning voters a day after he spoke to a crowd of hundreds at the snow state fairground. Moderate candidates also campaigned hard in Utah, sensing an opportunity to pick up delegates in the open primary that marked the state’s first Super Tuesday vote in more than a decade.
Polls were busy as turnout topped the record of 32% of active voters set in 2009, according to state elections officials. President Donald Trump won the GOP nominating contest, and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg also had a strong showing.
Lincoln Eggertz, 37, voted for Sanders because he said it’s time to get rid of ultra-wealthy politicians and replace them with someone who understands the plight of regular people. He scoffed at the theory that Sanders can’t beat President Donald Trump in November.
“I think there is a lot of young people out there that want to see change and that whole entire group is underestimated right now,” said Eggertz, a college student and bartender from Sandy, Utah.
Nationally, the high-profile series of primaries in 14 delegate-rich states across the country came as the Democratic centrists lined up behind former vice-president Joe Biden, who has pitched himself as the best choice to defeat President Donald Trump.
Voters like Rob Applegarth, a 67-year-old respiratory therapist from Riverton, agreed. He said he personally likes some of the ideas he hears from Sanders, but thinks Biden can bring in a bigger coalition. “I think Bernie scares people off,” he said.
His wife, Suzy Applegarth, on the other hand, voted for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. “If she was a man, she’d be winning,” said the registered nurse.
Biden could even bring in some Republicans turned off by Trump, said Alton McCalla, a 37-year-old data analyst from Sandy.
“I think he’ll bridge the gap,” McCalla said.
He never considered Mike Bloomberg, who has been criticized for enforcing a “stop and frisk” policing tactic while he was mayor of New York City that disproportionately affected minorities. McCalla, who is black, said he lived in New York during that era and said he was frisked so frequently that he would just stop and tell the officers to get it over with it.
McCalla laughed about Bloomberg’s late entry into the Democratic race and his big spending:
“He dumped so much money and I feel like it was for nothing. He should have used that money to back the Democratic nominee,” McCalla said.
Still, Bloomberg appeared twice in the state and convinced people like Shelley Evans, a 53-year-old hairdresser and orthodontal assistant. She thinks Bloomberg’s deep pockets give him the best chance to defeat Trump.
“We need a very, very strong candidate to beat President Trump,” Evans said. “I know it sounds really bad, but I feel like he’s got the funds and the money to do it… He is backing himself. It kind of makes him so he’s not biased.”
Utah has 29 pledged Democratic delegates. They are awarded on a proportional basis; the allocation wasn’t immediately announced.
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This story corrects that 2020 is not the first year Utah held a presidential primary on Super Tuesday.
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