2020 Ohio Democratic presidential primary
The 2020 Ohio Democratic presidential primary took place through April 28, 2020, as part of the Democratic Party primaries for the 2020 presidential election. In-person voting, originally scheduled for March 17, 2020 (along with three different states), had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ohio primary was a semi-open primary and awarded 154 delegates towards the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 136 were pledged delegates allocated based on the results of the primary.
 | |||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||
154 delegates (136 pledged, 18 unpledged) to the Democratic National Convention The number of pledged delegates won is determined by the popular vote | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||
 Election results by county
Joe Biden | |||||||||||||||||||
.jpg.webp)
| Elections in Ohio |
|---|
.svg.png.webp) |
| Pledged national convention delegates | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Del. | Type | Del. |
| CD1 | 6 | CD9 | 6 |
| CD2 | 5 | CD10 | 6 |
| CD3 | 7 | CD11 | 9 |
| CD4 | 4 | CD12 | 6 |
| CD5 | 5 | CD13 | 6 |
| CD6 | 3 | CD14 | 6 |
| CD7 | 4 | CD15 | 6 |
| CD8 | 4 | CD16 | 6 |
| PLEO | 18 | At-large | 29 |
| Total pledged delegates | 136 | ||
The legislature and governor ultimately made the decision to run an all-mail primary, with no in-person voting, allowing votes to be received through April 28.[1] Former vice president Joe Biden, the only Democrat still in the race, won the primary with more than 72% of the vote and 115 delegates. Senator Bernie Sanders caught 21 delegates, surpassing the threshold with around 17%.
Procedure
The primary, scheduled for March 17, 2020 on the same day as Arizona, Florida and Illinois (whose primaries were not moved), had initially been postponed to June 2 one day before voting day, but was subsequently set to continue by extending mail-in voting until April 28 through a law signed by governor Mike DeWine on March 27. Mails had to be received by post until April 27, with the additional option to hand-deliver mail-in ballots on April 28. It was the only contest on that day, as all six states originally planned for that day postponed their primaries.
In the semi-open primary, candidates had to meet a threshold of 15 percent at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable. The 136 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention were allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of these, between three and nine were allocated to each of the state's 16 congressional districts and another 18 were allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates), in addition to 29 at-large delegates.[2] As Ohio's primary had originally been planned for a March date on Stage I of the primary timetable, it received no bonus delegates by the Democratic National Committee.
District delegates to the national convention were planned to be elected at post-primary caucuses on April 16, 2020; should candidates have received more delegates based on the results of the primary than delegate candidates presented at the time, then additional delegates would have been nominated during these caucuses. The state executive committee of the party subsequently would have met on May 9, 2020, to vote on the 29 at-large and 18 pledged PLEO delegates for the Democratic National Convention. The delegation also included 18 unpledged PLEO delegates: 12 members of the Democratic National Committee, 5 members of Congress (one senator and four representatives, notably temporary presidential contender Tim Ryan), and former DNC chair David Wilhelm.[2]
Postponement and delay
The primary had originally been scheduled for March 17, 2020. While only the Ohio General Assembly, and not the governor, had the authority to schedule a new election day[3] Republican Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine recommended on March 16 moving the primary election to June amid concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.[4] As he did not have the power to unilaterally make this decision, he went to court to support a lawsuit requesting the delay,[5] but a judge rejected the lawsuit.[6] Later in the day, the Health Director ordered the polls closed as a health emergency.[7] Early on March 17, the Ohio Supreme Court denied the challenge to the state and allowed the primary's delay to proceed.[8]
The governor had proposed to the state legislature that June 2 would be the replacement day,[9] but the final joint decision by the legislature and governor was to run an all-mail primary, with voting through April 28.[1][10]
Candidates
The following people appeared on the ballot in Ohio:[11]
Running
Withdrawn
Andrew Yang (as well as John Delaney) did not qualify for the ballot due to invalid petitions, with Yang running a registered write-in campaign instead.[11]
Polling
| Polling Aggregation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source of poll aggregation | Date updated |
Dates polled |
Joe Biden |
Bernie Sanders |
Other/ Undecided[lower-alpha 1] | |
| 270 to Win | Mar 16, 2020 | Mar 10–13, 2020 | 57.5% | 35.0% | 7.5% | |
| RealClear Politics | Mar 16, 2020 | Mar 10–13, 2020 | 57.5% | 35.0% | 7.5% | |
| FiveThirtyEight | Mar 16, 2020 | until Mar 13, 2020 [lower-alpha 2] | 58.7% | 32.3% | 9.0% | |
| Average | 57.9% | 34.1% | 8.0% | |||
| Tabulation of individual polls of the 2020 Ohio Democratic primary | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poll source | Date(s) administered |
Sample size[lower-alpha 3] |
Margin of error |
Joe Biden |
Michael Bloomberg |
Cory Booker |
Pete Buttigieg |
Kamala Harris |
Bernie Sanders |
Elizabeth Warren |
Andrew Yang |
Other | Undecided | |||
| Sanders suspends his campaign: Politico Story | ||||||||||||||||
| Swayable Archived 2020-03-17 at the Wayback Machine | Mar 16, 2020 | 2,027 (LV) | ± 3.0% | 66% | – | – | – | – | 24% | – | – | 10%[lower-alpha 4] | – | |||
| Marist/NBC News | Mar 10–13, 2020 | 486 (LV) | ± 5.6% | 58% | – | – | – | – | 35% | – | – | 4%[lower-alpha 5] | 4% | |||
| 830 (RV) | ± 4.1% | 56% | – | – | – | – | 36% | – | – | 4%[lower-alpha 6] | 4% | |||||
| Emerson College/Nexstar | Mar 11–12, 2020 | 464 (LV) | ± 4.5% | 57% | – | – | – | – | 35% | – | – | 1%[lower-alpha 7] | 7% | |||
| ROI Rocket | Mar 6–12, 2020 | 880 (LV) | ± 3.3% | 61% | – | – | – | – | 33% | – | – | –[lower-alpha 8] | –[lower-alpha 8] | |||
| Warren withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Bloomberg withdraws from the race: NYT Story | ||||||||||||||||
| Klobuchar withdraws from the race: NYT Story | ||||||||||||||||
| Buttigieg withdraws from the race: NYT Story | ||||||||||||||||
| South Carolina primary; Steyer withdraws from the race after close of polls | ||||||||||||||||
| New Hampshire primary; Yang and Bennet withdraw from the race after close of polls | ||||||||||||||||
| Iowa Caucuses | ||||||||||||||||
| Baldwin Wallace University/Oakland University/Ohio Northern University |
Jan 8–20, 2020 | 428 (RV) | – | 32.1% | 10.1% | – | 6.1% | – | 20.8% | 10.7% | 2.1% | 5.7%[lower-alpha 9] | 9.8% | |||
| Booker withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Williamson withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Castro withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Harris withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Bloomberg announces his candidacy | ||||||||||||||||
| O'Rourke withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Ryan withdraws from the race | ||||||||||||||||
| Climate Nexus | Oct 1–7, 2019 | 443 (LV) | – | 32% | – | 3% | 5% | 6% | 13% | 21% | 3% | 17%[lower-alpha 10] | –[note 1] | |||
| Emerson | Sep 29 – Oct 2, 2019 | 353 (LV) | ± 5.2% | 29% | – | 0% | 5% | 7% | 27% | 21% | 3% | 5%[lower-alpha 11] | 2% | |||
| Quinnipiac | Jul 17–22, 2019 | 556 | ± 5.1% | 31% | – | 1% | 6% | 14% | 14% | 13% | 1% | 6%[lower-alpha 12] | 11% | |||
| Zogby Analytics | May 23–29, 2019 | 222 | ± 6.6% | 29% | – | 3% | 6% | 5% | 19% | 12% | 3% | 6%[lower-alpha 13] | – | |||
Results
| Candidate | Votes | % | Delegates[13] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Biden | 647,284 | 72.37 | 115 |
| Bernie Sanders (withdrawn) | 149,683 | 16.74 | 21 |
| Elizabeth Warren (withdrawn) | 30,985 | 3.46 | |
| Michael Bloomberg (withdrawn) | 28,704 | 3.21 | |
| Pete Buttigieg (withdrawn) | 15,113 | 1.69 | |
| Amy Klobuchar (withdrawn) | 11,899 | 1.33 | |
| Tulsi Gabbard (withdrawn) | 4,560 | 0.51 | |
| Tom Steyer (withdrawn) | 2,801 | 0.31 | |
| Michael Bennet (withdrawn) | 2,030 | 0.23 | |
| Deval Patrick (withdrawn) | 822 | 0.09 | |
| Andrew Yang (write-in; withdrawn) | 502 | 0.06 | |
| Total | 894,383 | 100% | 136 |
Notes
- Additional candidates
- Calculated by taking the difference of 100% and all other candidates combined
- FiveThirtyEight aggregates polls with a trendline regression of polls rather than a strict average of recent polls.
- Key:
A – all adults
RV – registered voters
LV – likely voters
V – unclear - Gabbard with 6%; "Other" with 4%
- Gabbard with 2%; "Other" with 2%
- Gabbard with 2%; "Other" with 2%
- Gabbard with 1%
- Not yet released
- Steyer with 2.2%; Klobuchar with 1.5%; Bennet with 0.8%; Gabbard with 0.5%; Delaney with 0.4%; Patrick with 0.3%
- Ryan with 2%; Castro, Delaney, O'Rourke, Steyer and Williamson with 1%; Bennet, Bullock, Gabbard, Klobuchar, Messam and Sestak with 0%; Other/Unsure with 10%
- O'Rourke with 2%; Delaney, Gabbard, and Bullock with 1%; Ryan, Bennett, Klobuchar, Sestak, Steyer, Castro, and Messam with 0%
- Castro, Gabbard, Klobuchar, O'Rourke, Ryan, and Steyer with 1%; Bennet, de Blasio, Bullock, Delaney, Gillibrand, Gravel, Hickenlooper, Inslee, Messam, Moulton, and Sestak with 0%
- O'Rourke with 2%; Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, and Klobuchar with 1%; Castro and Inslee with 0%
- The poll did not provide separate information for this entry, so it is grouped under 'other'.
References
- Andrew J. Tobias, "Ohio lawmakers sets all-mail primary election through April 28; legal challenge still possible", Cleveland Plain Dealer/cleveland.com, Mar 25, 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
- "Ohio Democratic Delegation 2020". The Green Papers. May 3, 2019. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
- Brandon Brown, "Ohio Democratic chairs issue letter on Ohio primary election," WFMJ News March 23, 2020; updated March 24th 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
- Merica, Dan (March 16, 2020). "Ohio governor recommends delaying Tuesday's primary until June amid coronavirus pandemic". CNN. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
- Li Zhou, "The chaotic delay of the Ohio primary, explained," Vox, Mar 17, 2020. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
- "Judge rejects lawsuit to delay Ohio's primary election". WBNS-TV. March 16, 2020. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
- "Ohio health chief to order polls closed ahead of primary amid coronavirus". fox8.com. March 16, 2020. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
- Rouan, Rick; Futty, John (March 17, 2020). "Coronavirus: Ohio Supreme Court allows delay to primary election". The Columbus Dispatch. Archived from the original on June 19, 2020. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
- McKenzie Caldwell (March 17, 2020). "Ohio primary election will now be held June 2". The Times-Gazette. Retrieved March 17, 2020.
- "Ohio Primary: State legislature OKs mail-in ballots, eliminates in-person voting", WHIO, March 25, 2020.
- "Secretary of State Announces Certification of Official Ballots for the 2020 Ohio Primary Election". Ohio Secretary of State. Archived from the original on February 22, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2020.
- "2020 ELECTIONS RESULTS". Ohio Secretary of State. Archived from the original on June 9, 2020. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
- "Delegate Tracker". interactives.ap.org. Associated Press. Retrieved April 30, 2020.