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Wisconsin primary polls open amid coronavirus pandemic

Wisconsin's polls are open for its primary election, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Yahoo Finance Myles Udland and Rick Newman discuss.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: We're focused here on the markets and what's happening with coronavirus, and, of course, here in New York City. Many of us are based here in the city.

One state, Wisconsin, heading to the polls today as the Democratic primary process continues. Rick Newman joins us now with more. I guess, Rick, two parts here. One, why is this happening? Why are Wisconsinites standing near each other today amid the coronavirus? And then, two, there are some implications here, particularly when we think about where Wisconsin fit into the electoral map in 2016, where folks think it'll fit in in 2020, and who kind of leveraged themselves to some of these states. And that, of course, would be Bernie Sanders.

RICK NEWMAN: Well, people are turning out to vote today, because the governor and the legislature-- the governor is a Democrat. The legislature is controlled by Republicans. They could not agree on whether to postpone or how to postpone. So the governor at the last minute, he tried to put this off until June, but that requires an act, the legislature to pass a state law in Wisconsin. And they would not do that. They would not pass that law.

So that meant there were some court challenges. But at the end of the day, the election was on.

And it's kind of amazing really. I mean, you might have thought, oh, it's only a primary election. For the sake of safety, people would stay home. No! People want to vote. Virus be damned. So we've seen these pictures and this footage of lines going for a couple of blocks. They are only opening a few polling places in Miami. For example, they were going to open 180, but instead they're only open opening five polling places in Milwaukee. So that means they don't have the poll workers or the volunteers to do that.

So that means with so few places to vote, people just have to wait a long time, and they're spaced out six feet. And there are all these rules when you go in. You have to take hand sanitizer when you go in. You have to take hand sanitizer when you go out. You're not allowed to touch anybody. You have to show your ID from a distance, and all these things.

So we're going to find out if this works. I mean, Joe Biden is favored to win. I think the question is, how big will he win, though? I think it's going to be very interesting to see what the turnout is there as well. And if Biden does win big, and we're not going to know that tonight. We're probably not going to have final-- we will have exit polls probably today, but not final results.

But if Biden wins big, could that be the thing that finally knocks Bernie Sanders out of the race? He's hanging in there. But more and more people are saying it's really time to just admit you're not going to win and let Biden start to develop some momentum as the Democratic nominee.

MYLES UDLAND: Although, of course, Joe Biden didn't need any momentum, and then he still went and swept Super Tuesday. So maybe it's better if he just hangs out and then on November 3 comes out and says, remember, vote for me today.

RICK NEWMAN: Well, there's one important thing Biden needs, which is the support of Bernie Sanders and Bernie Sanders's voters. So I guess there's this idea that the longer Bernie Sanders just hangs out there, running his own renegade campaign, that leaves a shorter window of time for the party to coalesce around Biden, including those Sanders supporters. That's actually really important for turnout in November against President Trump, because Democrats think high turnout is one of the keys to beating Trump. And part of that turnout is the Bernie Sanders voters. So they need to make peace and sort of stop sniping at each other-- Sanders and Biden.

MYLES UDLAND: Yeah. I think there's also one other guy that Biden used to work for who will probably be pretty important in sorting all this out.

RICK NEWMAN: Obama.

MYLES UDLAND: I think he's going to wait. I think Obama will wait a few months for all that, once we get coronavirus at least a little more under control.

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