15 maps show how much worse Bernie Sanders fared in the 2020 Super Tuesday primaries compared to 2016

• Former VP Joe Biden crushed the competition in March 3rd Super Tuesday contests as Sen. Bernie Sanders lost multiple states he carried in 2016 and underperformed in nearly every other.
• Biden consolidated much of the party behind his candidacy and overwhelmingly swept ten Super Tuesday contests, amassing a big delegate lead over Sanders.
• Insider put together 15 maps and charts to break down exactly how Sanders fared in every 2020 Super Tuesday state compared to his 2016 presidential run.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

After outright winning or tying for first place in the Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada primary contests, Sen. Bernie Sanders seemed on an unstoppable path to the nomination.

But Sanders' big winning streak came to a screeching halt first with former VP Joe Biden's big win in the South Carolina primary and then in March 3rd's Super Tuesday contests, where fifteen states and territories held primaries and caucuses to allocate about 35% of national pledged delegates to the nomination.

Coming off the tails of his South Carolina victory, Biden consolidated much of the party behind his candidacy and overwhelmingly swept ten Super Tuesday contests, including in largely liberal states like Minnesota, Maine, and Massachusetts that Sanders carried in 2016 and was favored to win again.

Going into tomorrow's March 10 primary contests, Biden now holds a massive delegate lead over Sanders which he is poised to widen in states like Mississippi, Missouri, and Michigan which all vote tomorrow.

Sanders was disadvantaged this time around a few key factors, first and foremost by the size of the field. While 2016 was largely a two-person race between him and Hillary Clinton, Sanders had to contend with fellow top-tier candidates Biden as well as former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, both of whom won delegates but quit the race after Super Tuesday.

Not only did Biden prove to be a formidable opponent, but Bloomberg, Warren, or both reaching double-digits in some states like Utah, Colorado, and California further splintered the vote, making it harder in nearly every state for Sanders to rack up delegates at both the district and statewide level.

And on Super Tuesday, Biden built on his momentum from South Carolina and dominated Sanders among African-American voters, who make up a substantial proportion of the Democratic primary electorate in key Super Tuesday states like Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

While Biden was expected to perform well among black voters after South Carolina, Biden also impressively consolidated much of Sanders' former 2016 coalition behind his candidacy as the increase in young voter turnout that Sanders argued his candidacy could produce ultimately failed to materialize.

Biden not only won big in the suburban areas of states like Virginia and North Carolina with high proportions of college-educated residents, but also in the rural and predominately working-class parts of states like Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Maine that Sanders easily swept by big margins in 2016.

Voter turnout surged by over 60% compared to 2016 primary levels in big, delegate-rich states like Virginia and Texas, but the higher turnout among white, black, rural, and suburban voters alike benefited Biden and not Sanders - the opposite effect of what Sanders' campaign had been banking on.

Beyond Sanders failing to turn out young voters in particular on election day, some election analysts theorize that because Clinton was a far more unpopular and polarizing figure than Biden, Sanders' 2016 primary voters may have been more negatively motivated to cast a vote against Clinton than positively motivated to explicitly vote for Sanders and his platform.

Insider put together 15 maps and charts to break down exactly how Sanders fared in every 2020 Super Tuesday state compared to his 2016 presidential run, and illustrate how his share of the vote declined in every 2020 Super Tuesday state but California.

While Colorado, Maine, Utah, and California have already been called for either Biden or Sanders, they are still in the process of fully counting all mail-in and absentee ballots, meaning we don't yet have 100% of the returns reporting from those states and can't fully map the county-by-county results.

Here's how Sanders' performance in 2020 Super Tuesday states compares to how he did in the same states in 2016:

The most impressive aspect of Biden's performance yesterday was its breadth: he won urban voters, upscale & middle-class suburban voters AND rural/Appalachian voters.

Just about the only places he didn't win were heavily Latino or progressive activist hotbeds like college towns.

- Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 4, 2020

Democratic primary polls fielded after Super Tuesday are showing Sanders pulling in about 2/3rds of his 2016 vote share on average. He's doing worse in whiter states, which fits our theory about the anti-Hilalry vote (which was bigger among whites) fueling his 2016 campaign.

- G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) March 9, 2020

Here is something big that is different than 2016, via the new @QuinnipiacPoll.

Is ____ honest? %Yes/%No

Trump, Mar '20: 33/63 (-30)
Biden, Mar '20: 51/38 (+13)

Trump, Aug '16: 42/53 (-11)
Clinton, Aug '16: 29/66 (-37)

- Will Jordan (@williamjordann) March 9, 2020