Biden Sweeps Three States and Takes Commanding Lead, as Virus Reshapes American Politics

Joseph R. Biden Jr. easily defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in three major primaries on Tuesday, all but extinguishing Mr. Sanders’s chances for a comeback, as anxious Americans turned out to vote amid a series of cascading disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Biden, the former vice president, won by wide margins in Florida and Illinois and also carried Arizona, sweeping the night and achieving a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. The emphatic outcome could greatly intensify pressure on Mr. Sanders to end his campaign and allow Democrats to unify behind Mr. Biden as their presumptive nominee.

The routs in Florida and Illinois, two of the biggest prizes on the national map, represented both a vote of confidence in Mr. Biden from most Democrats, and a blunt rejection of Mr. Sanders’s candidacy by the kind of large, diverse states he would have needed to capture to broaden his appeal beyond the ideological left.

Mr. Sanders, of Vermont, has struggled since his first presidential campaign in 2016 to win over black voters in larger numbers and to persuade voters who do not share his ethos of democratic socialism that he can be trusted to lead the party into the general election.

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