2020 Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary
The 2020 Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary took place on June 2, 2020, after being postponed due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, as one of eight delayed and regular primaries on the same day in the Democratic primaries for the 2020 presidential election. It was originally planned to take place on April 28, 2020, as one of several northeastern states in the "Acela primary". The Pennsylvania primary was a closed primary, with the state awarding 210 delegates, of whom 186 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the primary results.
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210 delegates (186 pledged, 24 unpledged) to the Democratic National Convention The number of pledged delegates won is determined by the popular vote | |||||||||||||||||||
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 Election results by county
Joe Biden | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Pennsylvania |
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 Government |
Former vice president and presumptive nominee Joe Biden, who was born and raised in Pennsylvania, won the primary with more than 79% of the vote, earning another 151 delegates and helping him to cross the necessary majority of 1,991 delegates and officially win the Democratic nomination three days later during the vote count.[1] Senator Bernie Sanders, who had suspended his campaign two months earlier but still competed for delegates, received around 18% of the vote and 35 delegates.
Procedure
Pennsylvania had planned to join several northeastern states, which are connected by the Acela train system, as part of a regional cluster, the "Acela primary", in holding primaries on April 28.[2] The other states that would have voted on that day were Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on March 27 Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill postponing the primary to June 2 as Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Indiana did the same, while the three other states selected different dates.[3] They voted alongside these three postponed states and four regularly scheduled contests in the District of Columbia, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota.
Voting took place throughout the state from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. In the closed primary, candidates had to meet a threshold of 15% at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable. The 186 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention were allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of these, between 4 and 14 were allocated to each of the state's 18 congressional districts and another 20 were allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates), in addition to 41 at-large delegates.[4] Originally planned with 153 delegates, the final number included a 25% bonus of 33 additional delegates on the 100 district and 33 at-large delegates by the Democratic National Committee, 10% for the original April date, which belonged to Stage II on the primary timetable, and an additional 15% for the regional "Acela" cluster.[5][6]
Voters chose district-level national convention delegates during the presidential primary, with no need for an additional confirmation by party bodies. If a presidential candidate listed fewer district delegate candidates for the national convention than had to be allocated based on the results of the primary, then the additional delegates would be named at the subsequent state convention. On July 18 (postponed from July 13), the state convention voted on the 41 at-large and 20 pledged PLEO delegates for the national convention. The delegation also included 24 unpledged PLEO delegates: 12 members of the Democratic National Committee, 10 members of Congress (one senator and 9 representatives), Governor Wolf, and former DNC Chair Ed Rendell.[4]
| Pledged national convention delegates | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Del. | Type | Del. |
| CD1 | 8 | CD10 | 7 |
| CD2 | 8 | CD11 | 5 |
| CD3 | 14 | CD12 | 4 |
| CD4 | 10 | CD13 | 4 |
| CD5 | 9 | CD14 | 5 |
| CD6 | 8 | CD15 | 4 |
| CD7 | 7 | CD16 | 5 |
| CD8 | 6 | CD17 | 8 |
| CD9 | 4 | CD18 | 9 |
| PLEO | 20 | At-large | 41 |
| Total pledged delegates | 186 | ||
Candidates
The following candidates appeared on the ballot in Pennsylvania:[7]
- Joe Biden
- Tulsi Gabbard (withdrawn)
- Bernie Sanders (withdrawn)
There was also an option for write-in votes, but their general amount was not tallied.[8]
Polling
| Polling Aggregation | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Source of poll aggregation | Date updated |
Dates polled |
Joe Biden |
Bernie Sanders |
Other/ Undecided[lower-alpha 1] | ||||||
| 270 to Win | Mar 18, 2020 | Feb 11–Mar 8, 2020 | 39.5% | 28.0% | 32.5% | ||||||
| RealClear Politics | Feb 23, 2020 | Jan 20–Feb 20, 2020 | 39.5% | 28.0% | 32.5% | ||||||
| FiveThirtyEight | Mar 8, 2020 | until Feb 20, 2020[lower-alpha 2] | 54.4% | 29.3% | 16.3% | ||||||
| Average | 44.5% | 28.4% | 27.1% | ||||||||
| Poll source | Date(s) administered |
Sample size[lower-alpha 3] |
Margin of error |
Joe Biden |
Michael Bloomberg |
Cory Booker |
Pete Buttigieg |
Kamala Harris |
Beto O'Rourke |
Bernie Sanders |
Elizabeth Warren |
Other | Undecided |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sanders suspends his campaign | |||||||||||||
| YouGov/Yahoo News | Mar 6–8, 2020 | –(RV)[lower-alpha 4] | ± 5.1% | 59% | – | – | – | – | – | 31% | – | – | – |
| Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg and Warren withdraw from the race | |||||||||||||
| YouGov/University of Wisconsin-Madison | Feb 11–20, 2020 | 537 (LV) | – | 20% | 19% | – | 12% | – | – | 25% | 9% | 5%[lower-alpha 5] | 10%[lower-alpha 6] |
| New Hampshire primary; Yang withdraws from the race after close of polls | |||||||||||||
| Franklin & Marshall College | Jan 20–26, 2020 | 292 (RV) | ± 9.0% | 22% | 7% | – | 6% | – | – | 15% | 14% | 18%[lower-alpha 7] | 19% |
| Baldwin Wallace University/Oakland University/Ohio Northern University |
Jan 8–20, 2020 | 502 (RV) | – | 31.3% | 9.1% | – | 6.5% | – | – | 20.5% | 11.5% | 8.8%[lower-alpha 8] | 11% |
| Harris and Booker withdraw from the race | |||||||||||||
| Bloomberg announces his candidacy | |||||||||||||
| O'Rourke withdraws from the race | |||||||||||||
| Franklin & Marshall College | Oct 21–27, 2019 | 226 (RV) | ± 8.9% | 30% | – | 1% | 8% | 1% | <1% | 12% | 18% | 15%[lower-alpha 9] | 16% |
| Siena Research/New York Times | Oct 13–26, 2019 | 304 | – | 28% | – | 0% | 4% | 1% | 0% | 14% | 16% | 3%[lower-alpha 10] | 30% |
| Kaiser Family Foundation | Sep 23–Oct 15, 2019 | 246 (LV) | – | 27% | – | 1% | 3% | 4% | No voters | 14% | 18% | 5%[lower-alpha 11] | 29% |
| Susquehanna Polling and Research Inc. Archived 2019-10-31 at the Wayback Machine | Sep 30–Oct 6, 2019 | 307 (RV) | ± 5.6% | 17% | – | 0% | 8% | 1% | 0% | 6% | 9% | 7%[lower-alpha 12] | 52% |
| Franklin & Marshall College | Jul 29–Aug 4, 2019 | 295 | ± 8.7% | 28% | – | 2% | 6% | 8% | 1% | 12% | 21% | 3%[lower-alpha 13] | 19% |
| Zogby Analytics | May 23–29, 2019 | 246 | ± 6.3% | 46% | – | 2% | 9% | 3% | 2% | 15% | 8% | 2%[lower-alpha 14] | – |
| Quinnipiac University | May 9–14, 2019 | 431 | ± 6.2% | 39% | – | 5% | 6% | 8% | 2% | 13% | 8% | 3%[lower-alpha 15] | 12% |
| Biden announces his candidacy | |||||||||||||
| Buttigieg announces his candidacy | |||||||||||||
| Muhlenberg College | Apr 3–10, 2019 | 405 | ± 5.5% | 28% | – | 3% | 4% | 8% | 3% | 16% | 8% | 9%[lower-alpha 16] | 20% |
| Emerson College Archived 2019-04-20 at the Wayback Machine | Mar 26–28, 2019 | 359 | ± 5.1% | 39% | – | 4% | 6% | 5% | 5% | 20% | 11% | 10%[lower-alpha 17] | – |
Results
| Candidate | Votes | % | Delegates[10] |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Biden | 1,264,624 | 79.26 | 151 |
| Bernie Sanders (withdrawn) | 287,834 | 18.04 | 35 |
| Tulsi Gabbard (withdrawn) | 43,050 | 2.70 | |
| Total | 1,595,508 | 100% | 186 |
See also
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 - Part of a 1,750 registered voter poll of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin
- Klobuchar with 5%; "Others" not reported separately
- contains also "others"
- Yang and Klobuchar with 5%; "Other" with 2%; "None" with 6%
- Klobuchar and Yang with 2.5%; Bennet with 1.2%; Steyer with 1%; Gabbard with 0.9%; Delaney with 0.4%; Patrick with 0.3%
- Bennet, Gabbard and Klobuchar with 2%; Yang with 1%; Bullock with <1%; none with 8%; other with 0%
- Yang with 2%; Klobuchar with 1%; others with 0%
- Yang with 2%; Klobuchar and Steyer with 1%; Bennet, Bullock, Delaney, Gabbard, Messam, O'Rourke, Ryan, Sestak and Williamson with no voters; refused with 1%
- Bennet with 2%; Klobuchar with 1%; Bullock, Castro, Delaney, Gabbard, Messam, Ryan, Sestak, Steyer, Williamson and Yang with 0%; someone else/none with 3%; refused to answer with 1%
- Bullock, Gabbard, and "Other" with 1%
- Castro, Gillibrand, and Yang with 1%; Delaney, Gabbard, Hickenlooper, Inslee, and Klobuchar with 0%
- Klobuchar with 1%; Bennet, Castro, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenlooper, Inslee, Messam, Moulton, Ryan, Swalwell, Williamson, and Yang with <1%; others with 2%
- Klobuchar with 3%; others with 6%
- Gabbard with 3%; Gillibrand with 2%; Castro and Yang with 1%; Hickenlooper, Inslee, and Klobuchar with 0%; others with 4%
References
- "Biden Formally Clinches Democratic Nomination, While Gaining Steam Against Trump". NPR. June 5, 2020. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
- Thompson, Steve; Nirappil, Fenit (February 6, 2019). "D.C. is slated to vote last in 2020 Democratic primaries. That might change". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
- Levy, Marc; Scolforo, Mark (March 25, 2020). "Pennsylvania lawmakers vote to delay primary election". AP NEWS. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
- "Pennsylvania Democratic Delegation 2020". The Green Papers. May 3, 2019. Retrieved June 23, 2019.
- "Democratic Timing Penalties and Bonuses". The Green Papers. November 24, 2021. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
- "The Math Behind the Democratic Delegate Allocation - 2020". The Green Papers. November 24, 2021. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
- "Sample Ballot - General Primary and Special Election June 2, 2020" (PDF). philadelphiavotes.com. April 15, 2020.
- "Sample Ballot - General Primary and Special Election June 2, 2020" (PDF). philadelphiavotes.com. April 15, 2020.
- "2020 Presidential Primary Official Returns". Pennsylvania Department of State. Retrieved October 14, 2020.
- "2020 Primary Elections: Pennsylvania results". NBC. July 17, 2020. Retrieved August 11, 2020.