Former Vice President Joe Biden won the Florida Democratic primary on Tuesday night, beating out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and crystallizing his status as the party’s frontrunner. Voting in Florida, which awarded the most delegates of the three states that voted on March 17, proceeded amid global turmoil from Covid-19, the coronavirus pandemic. The results were called by the Associated Press at 8 p.m.

For days, national officials struggled to offer a united message to voters in states heading into the polls. Florida awards 219 pledged delegates in total. Before the results were called, FiveThirtyEight forecast that Biden had a 99 percent chance of winning the most delegates in the state. On the eve of Primary Day, more than a dozen Florida leaders endorsed Biden’s bid.