Biden, Trump score landslide wins in Manatee County
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden were big winners in Tuesday’s presidential preference primary race.
Both candidates secured victories in the state of Florida, winning handily in Manatee County. According to Supervisor of Elections Michael Bennett, about 69,000 people voted in the primary election – about 36 percent of the county’s registered Democrat and Republican voters.
By 7:45 p.m., the Supervisor of Elections office listed unofficial results for county’s 70 precincts.
Trump faced lesser-known Republican candidates in his race, and trounced them without issue. He earned about 94 percent of the Republican vote.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was Biden’s main competitor in an election that came just two days after both Democrats went head-to-head in a national debate Sunday night. Almost immediately after Florida’s last polling stations closed at 8 p.m., several outlets reported that Biden had easily won the state.
In Manatee County, most Democrats went with Biden, helping him beat Sanders by more than 40 percentage points, according to unofficial results that started to come in right after polling stations closed at 7 p.m.
Biden earned 18,733 votes or 61 percent. Sanders earned 5,787 votes or 19 percent. In third place among Democrats was former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who earned 3,373 votes or 11 percent of the vote, even though he dropped out from the race two weeks ago.
Tuesday’s election results are in line with local fundraising efforts among presidential candidates. Despite success in early primary voting states like New Hampshire and Iowa, Sanders was raising about half as much money as Biden from voters in the Bradenton area.
The top earner, however, was Trump, who has reeled in more than $600,000 from local voters in his bid for a second term in the White House. Those campaign finance donations ultimately turned into wins for Biden and Trump.
This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 8:10 PM.
