March 10 primaries live updates: Biden bests Sanders in 4 states

NBC News projected on Thursday that Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., won the Democratic primary in California, the state with the largest amount of Super Tuesday delegates.

With 88 percent of the vote in, the Vermont lawmaker leads with 34.3 percent of the vote. Former vice president Joe Biden is in second place with 27.6 percent.

California has 415 delegates at stake. Currently, Sanders picked up 202 delegates from the state to Biden's 148, according to NBC News.

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As coronavirus continues to spread, election officials in the four states holding presidential primaries next Tuesday are encouraging Americans to vote by unconventional means to avoid crowds.

That usually means voting by mail or voting early to avoid large crowds in states where those things are an option — as is the case in those holding primaries March 17.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the coronavirus a pandemic Wednesday, and has recommended that election officials“[e]ncourage voters to use voting methods that minimize direct contact with other people and reduce crowd size at polling stations.”

“We have really been pushing as much as we can for voters who are concerned by polling places to take advantage of voting by mail,” Matt Dietrich, public affairs officer at the Illinois State Board of Elections, told NBC News. “That’s obviously the easiest way to avoid any kind of exposure to crowds, or lines or other people.”

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Former Vice President Joe Biden is naming Jen O’Malley Dillion as his new campaign manager, a major organizational shake-up that comes as he prepares to expand his campaign operations and shift his focus to the general election.

O’Malley Dillion, 43, was the deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign and served as the executive director for the Democratic National Committee during Obama’s first term.

Most recently, O’Malley Dillion joined former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s long-shot presidential bid as campaign manager based in El Paso. O’Rourke dropped out of the race in November and endorsed Biden in March.

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The Democratic National Committee on Thursday announced that Sunday's primary debate will be moved from Phoenix to Washington, D.C., as the nation grapples with the coronavirus outbreak.

Earlier this week, as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders began canceling campaign rallies, the DNC announced the debate would no longer feature a live audience while CNN, the debate's host, said the traditional spin and press rooms would be scrapped.

"Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience," DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement.

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Joe Biden is winning the delegate race over Bernie Sanders. Now comes the hard part — winning over Sanders' supporters.

"Bernie brothers," as Biden himself called them at a fundraiser last week, are known for their loyalty to the senator from Vermont and their defections in 2016 to Donald Trump and third-party candidates may have contributed to Hillary Clinton's loss.

At the end of their long, bitter primary, Clinton put the onus on Sanders to bring his backers into the fold. To avoid a repeat of four years ago, Biden will likely have to be more proactive and not count on Sanders to do the work unifying the party for him — even if that means the former vice president will have to turn the other cheek to ongoing attacks and rein in his own supporters' desire to gloat or to speed Sanders' exit.

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In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Joe Biden has changed two upcoming campaign events to be "virtual events" with no large crowds attending.

A previously scheduled Friday event in Chicago and a previously scheduled Monday event in Miami will now both be "virtual" events, Biden’s campaign said Wednesday.

"The health and safety of the public is our number one priority. We have been and will continue to consult with relevant officials, including our recently announced Public Health Advisory Committee, regarding steps the campaign should take to minimize health risks for staff and supporters," the campaign said. "As a result of those conversations and at the request of elected officials in Illinois and Florida, we will no longer hold large crowd events on Friday and Monday in those states."

The campaign said it will provide additional  details about the format and timing of the virtual events — and on future campaign events — "in the coming days."

Joe Biden's presidential campaign has formed a public health advisory committee to assist it with responding to the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

In a statement, the Biden campaign said it formed the body "to provide science-based, expert advice regarding steps the campaign should take to minimize health risks for the candidate, staff, and supporters."

"Members of the committee will provide ongoing counsel to the campaign, which will in turn continue to update the public regarding operational decisions," the campaign said.

The campaign said the committee would consist of six members — all doctors or former government officials  — including Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a noted oncologist, the vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and the brother of former Obama chief of staff, Rahm Emanual.

The formation of the committee comes one day after Biden canceled a campaign event Thursday in Tampa, Fla., and replaced it with a speech on the coronavirus epidemic in his hometown, Wilmington, Del.

Voters in key battleground and Democratic primary states were inundated with ads from former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who ended his presidential bid earlier this month. Now, his campaign is making those ads available to the wider public.   

The billionaire businessman, who was roundly criticized for his runaway spending during the campaign, spent $275 million alone on anti-Trump ads since December 2019, his campaign announced on Wednesday. 

As of Bloomberg’s final day on the trail, he spent more than $445 million in TV/radio advertising in total on his campaign. His campaign said that ads were placed to "remind voters of Trump’s failures and broken promises while in office." 

The campaign is now making all of its "creative assets" and ads available so members of the public can share "on their own networks." Bloomberg's campaign spent more than $175 million in local markets, including all battleground states, and more than $45 million nationally. It created 31 different TV spots and spent nearly $50 million in digital anti-Trump ads.

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