Super Tuesday tally: Biden wins 5 states, Sanders takes 2

Joe Biden scored a series of Super Tuesday victories in key Southern states, building on momentum that has swiftly revived his Democratic presidential campaign in recent days. Bernie Sanders countered with wins in his home state of Vermont and in Colorado, as the race began to shift west, where some polls were starting to close.

Biden took Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and the battleground states of North Carolina and Virginia, a strong start as 14 states went to the polls across the nation. Still, voting was ongoing in the two top prizes, Texas and California meaning the night's biggest winner remained unclear.

The victories in heavily African American states complemented the former vice president's resounding win in last weekend's South Carolina primary. Virginia was especially key because Sanders, a Vermont senator, and billionaire former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg heavily contested it over the past week.

A once-jumbled race arrived at the most pivotal night of the primary as an increasingly well-defined battle between leftist Democrats who back the likes of Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and centrists preferring Biden. A wild card was Bloomberg, who skipped the primary's first four states but poured more than $500 million of his personal fortune into TV advertising in Super