Today will mark the first round of primaries since Super Tuesday, where one week ago former Vice President Joe Biden won ten out of the fourteen voting states and locked himself in as the prohibitive favorite for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. His only competitive opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, underperformed expectations and is looking to staunch the loss of momentum that came with the defeat.

Voting today will be Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington.

Both Mississippi and Missouri, with their significant populations of African Americans, are expected to go for Biden by overwhelming margins. Barack Obama’s running mate has made the black community the bedrock of his now-winning coalition, and their support has been the biggest factor in vaunting him back to first place. Biden currently has over a forty-point lead in Mississippi (with thirty-six delegates) and a thirty-point lead in Missouri (with sixty-eight delegates).

In his 2016 campaign, Bernie Sanders won both North Dakota and Idaho by a significant margin. It does not appear that these rural states will go to him a second time, however. Polling from both states, which has been limited, give Biden a double-digit lead in both contests. They are the least delegate-rich of the states voting today, with Idaho possessing twenty delegates and the North Dakota caucus having only fifteen.

The worst premonitions for the Sanders campaign come from Washington state and Michigan. In 2016 Sanders won Washington with 72% of the vote, a commanding showing. But each poll taken since Super Tuesday shows Biden with a lead, ranging from one to six points. Washington, and its eighty-nine delegates, will probably be the biggest tossup of the night. Even if he’s only able to do so by a thin margin, it’s critical that Sanders win the state and be able to demonstrate a victory on the board instead of a potential six-state loss.

Potentially the most damaging state is Michigan, where in 2016 Sanders made up a twenty-point polling deficit and won the primary with much fanfare. Michigan will be one of the critical battleground states in the general election, and whoever wins the primary and it's one hundred and twenty-five delegates (the largest tally of the night) will be able to position themselves as the candidate best suited to win it back in November. Polls show Biden with a lead of just over twenty points, the same lead Hillary Clinton had before her surprise defeat.

Can Bernie Sanders expect a repeat miracle tonight? Unlikely, writes FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, because “it’s not so clear that working-class white voters are a strength for Sanders” this year. While they formed the backbone of his insurgent 2016 campaign, prior states indicate that a significant percentage of them have been lost to Joe Biden.

A possible six-state loss would signal the death knell for the democratic socialist. The only chance Sanders would have of continuing his campaign, and staging a comeback, would be the primary debate in two days, where only he and Biden have qualified. If the results are a disaster, and Sanders does not drop out, it’ll be clear he’s banking his campaign on Thursday’s debate.

Hunter DeRensis is the senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.

Image: Reuters.