Though it feels like months ago at this point, voters convened at the polls on Super Tuesday only five weeks ago to make their voices heard in the Democratic primary. At that time, it was a four-candidate race, and even more candidates were in the running at the time that many early ballots were filled out. The vastly different state of the race on February 25 was reflected in the responses of the interviews that were conducted at the Boston Public Library, one of the early voting locations in Boston, Massachusetts. Though the sample size was far too small to be considered representative, the opinions and preferences offered reflected a much different Democratic primary than the one in the weeks that followed; this was pre-Coronavirus, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar were still in the race, and it was days before Joe Biden’s landslide victory in the South Carolina primary. At this point, Bernie Sanders was considered the frontrunner, a week before Biden received endorsements from a slew of influential Democratic figures.
Many of the responses recorded in the video fell along the lines of conventional wisdom of the race; most voters prioritized a candidate who they believed was well-equipped to defeat Trump. Such respondents were divided in who that candidate was, however, with Biden, Sanders, and Bloomberg all receiving support among those voters. The college-aged voters were the most enthusiastic supporters surveyed, and their support was firmly behind Senator Sanders. While these interviews were revealing at the time, the race changed so much by the time the majority of Massachusetts voters voted on March 3 that the results appeared far differently than originally expected. Biden won with 34% of the vote, with Sanders in second at 27%, and Elizabeth Warren garnering only 21% of the vote in her own state. Michael Bloomberg struggled to reach double digits, and netted 0 delegates from Massachusetts.
See below for some more detailed results of the Massachusetts Democratic primary as well as some key exit polls.
Sean Gallipo, Northeastern Journalism 