Biden wins Mississippi primary

Joe Biden defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Mississippi primary on Tuesday, the latest win by the former vice president in a Southern state.

CNN and NBC both called the race for Biden as soon as polls closed at 8 p.m. ET. Mississippi, with its large African American voting population, was expected to favor Biden in the contest. The state will award a total of 36 pledged delegates.

Biden’s win in the state is the latest sign of his strength in the Deep South, especially among black voters, who made up more than 70 percent of the Democratic primary electorate in Mississippi in 2016.

The victory comes on the heels of a good 10 days for Biden, whose campaign appeared to be on the verge of collapse just a couple of weeks ago.

He scored a major win in the South Carolina primary late last month followed by a series of victories on Super Tuesday. Those wins helped him pull ahead of Sanders in the delegate race and gave his campaign a much-needed burst of momentum.

Biden is still competing in a handful of states that held their primaries on Tuesday, including Michigan, Idaho, North Dakota and Washington state. He scored a clear victory in Missouri on Tuesday night, swiftly defeating Sanders in a state that the Vermont senator nearly won in the 2016 Democratic primary.

If Biden sweeps the map on Tuesday, he could gain a delegate lead that Sanders would have a tough time overcoming.

The biggest prize of the night is Michigan and its 125 delegates. Sanders pulled off a surprise win in the state in 2016 after polls showed Hillary Clinton leading by double digits in the run-up to the primary.

Recent polls have shown Biden with a wide lead in Michigan, but whether that advantage holds up remains one of the biggest questions of the March 10 primaries.