Presidential primaries and caucuses were organized by the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
to select the 3,979 pledged delegates to the
2020 Democratic National Convention
The 2020 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that was held from August 17 to 20, 2020, at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and virtually across the United States. At the convention, delegates of ...
held on August 17–20 to determine the party's nominee for
president in the
2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
. The elections took place in all 50 U.S. states, the
District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and
Democrats Abroad, and occurred between February 3 and August 11.
A total of 29 major candidates declared their candidacies for the primaries, the largest field of presidential primary candidates for any American political party since the modern primaries began in 1972, exceeding the field of 17 major candidates in the
2016 Republican Party presidential primaries
Presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party took place within all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories between February 1 and June 7, 2016. These elections selected the 2,472 delegates that were se ...
.
Former
Vice President Joe Biden led polls throughout 2019, with the exception of a brief period in October when Senator
Elizabeth Warren experienced a surge in support. 18 of the 29 declared candidates withdrew before the formal beginning of the primary due to low polling, fundraising, and media coverage. The first primary was marred by controversy, as technical issues with vote reporting resulted in a three-day delay in vote counting in the
Iowa caucus, as well as subsequent recounts. The certified results of the caucus eventually showed Mayor
Pete Buttigieg
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( ; ; Sometimes pronounced or , but not by Buttigieg himself. born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former military officer who is currently serving as the United States secretary of transp ...
winning the most delegates, while Senator
Bernie Sanders
Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
won the popular vote in the state. Sanders then went on to win the
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire presidential primary is the first in a series of nationwide party primary elections and the second party contest (the first being the Iowa caucuses) held in the United States every four years as part of the process of choosi ...
in a narrow victory over Buttigieg before handily winning the
Nevada caucus, cementing his status as the front-runner for the nomination.
Biden, whose campaign fortunes had suffered from losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, made a comeback by overwhelmingly winning the
South Carolina primary
The South Carolina presidential primary is an open primary election which has become one of several key early-state United States presidential primary, presidential primaries in the process of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic and Re ...
, motivated by strong support from
African American voters, an endorsement from South Carolina U.S. Representative
Jim Clyburn, as well as Democratic establishment concerns about nominating Sanders. After Biden won South Carolina, and before the
Super Tuesday primaries, several moderate candidates dropped out of the race and endorsed Biden in what was viewed as a consolidation of the party's moderate wing.
Biden then went on to win 10 out of 15 contests on
Super Tuesday, beating back challenges from Sanders, Warren, and former
New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
, solidifying his lead.
On April 8, Biden became the presumptive nominee after Sanders, the only other candidate remaining, withdrew from the race. In early June, Biden passed the threshold of 1,991 delegates to win the nomination.
In total, seven candidates received pledged delegates: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Senator
Amy Klobuchar
Amy Jean Klobuchar ( ; born May 25, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Minnesota, a seat she has held since 2007. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Minne ...
and U.S. Representative
Tulsi Gabbard. On August 11, Biden announced that former
presidential candidate Senator
Kamala Harris would be his running mate. Biden and Harris were officially nominated for
president and
vice president by delegates at the
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...
on August 18 and 19. Biden and Harris went on to win the presidency and vice presidency in the general election on November 3, defeating the incumbents President
Donald Trump and Vice President
Mike Pence
Michael Richard Pence (born June 7, 1959) is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th ...
.
Biden became the first Democratic candidate since
Bill Clinton, and the third ever Democratic candidate, to win the nomination without carrying either Iowa or New Hampshire, the first two states on the primary/caucus calendar.
The primaries were initially scheduled to go through June 6. However, the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the Uni ...
caused a number of states to shift their primaries to later in the year.
Background
After
Hillary Clinton's loss in the
previous election, many felt the Democratic Party lacked a clear leading figure.
Divisions remained in the party following the
2016 primaries, which pitted Clinton against
Bernie Sanders
Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Vermont since 2007. He was the U.S. representative for the state's at-large congressional district from 1991 to 2007 ...
.
Between the 2016 election and the
2018 midterm elections
The 2018 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. These midterm elections occurred during Republican Donald Trump's term. Democrats made a net gain of 41 seats in the United States House of Representatives, gaining a majo ...
, Senate Democrats generally shifted to the
political left in relation to college tuition, healthcare, and immigration.
The
2018 elections
The following elections are scheduled to occur in 2018. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world.
Africa
*2018 Djiboutian parliamentary election 23 February 2018
*2018 Sierra Leonean general elect ...
saw the Democratic Party regain the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years, picking up seats in both urban and suburban districts.
Reforms since 2016
On August 25, 2018, the
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well a ...
(DNC) members passed reforms to the Democratic Party's primary process in order to increase participation
and ensure transparency.
State parties are encouraged to use a government-run primary whenever available and increase the accessibility of their primary through
same-day or
automatic
Automatic may refer to:
Music Bands
* Automatic (band), Australian rock band
* Automatic (American band), American rock band
* The Automatic, a Welsh alternative rock band
Albums
* ''Automatic'' (Jack Bruce album), a 1983 electronic rock ...
registration and same-day party switching. Caucuses are required to have absentee voting, or to otherwise allow those who cannot participate in person to be included.
Independent of the results of the primaries and caucuses, the Democratic Party, from its group of party leaders and elected officials, also appointed 771 unpledged delegates (
superdelegates) to participate in its national convention.
In contrast to all previous election cycles since superdelegates were introduced in 1984, superdelegates will no longer have the right to cast decisive votes on the convention's first ballot for the presidential nomination. They will be allowed to cast non-decisive votes if a candidate has clinched the nomination before the first ballot, or decisive votes on subsequent ballots in a
contested convention.
In that case, the number of votes required shall increase to a majority of pledged and superdelegates combined. Superdelegates are not precluded from publicly endorsing a candidate before the convention.
There were also a number of changes to the process of nomination at the state level. A decline in the number of caucuses occurred after 2016, with Democrats in Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Washington all switching from various forms of caucuses to primaries (with Hawaii, Kansas, and North Dakota switching to party-run "
firehouse primaries"). This has resulted in the lowest number of caucuses in the Democratic Party's recent history, with only three states (Iowa, Nevada, and Wyoming) and four territories (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas, and U.S. Virgin Islands) using them. In addition, six states were approved in 2019 by the DNC to use
ranked-choice voting Ranked-choice voting may be used as a synonym for:
* Ranked voting, a term used for any voting system in which voters are asked to rank candidates in order of preference
* Instant-runoff voting (IRV), a specific ranked voting system with single-w ...
in the primaries: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, and Wyoming for all voters; Iowa and Nevada for absentee voters. Rather than eliminating candidates until a single winner is chosen, voters' choices would be reallocated until all remaining candidates have at least 15%, the threshold to receive delegates to the convention.
Several states which did not use paper ballots widely in 2016 and 2018,
adopted
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from ...
them for the 2020 primary and general elections,
to minimize potential interference in vote tallies, a concern raised by intelligence officials,
election officials
and the public.
The move to paper ballots enabled audits to start where they had not been possible before, and in 2020 about half the states
audit samples of primary ballots to measure accuracy of the reported results.
Audits of caucus results depend on party rules, and the
Iowa Democratic party investigated inaccuracies in precinct reports, resolved enough to be sure the delegate allocations were correct, and decided it did not have authority or time to correct all errors.
Rules for number of delegates
Number of pledged delegates per state
The number of pledged delegates from each state is proportional to the state's share of the
electoral college, and to the state's past Democratic votes for president.
Thus less weight is given to swing states and Republican states, while more weight is given to strongly Democratic states, in choosing a nominee.
Six pledged delegates are assigned to each territory, 44 to Puerto Rico, and 12 to Democrats Abroad. Each jurisdiction can also earn bonus delegates by holding primaries after March or in clusters of 3 or more neighboring states.
Within states, a quarter of pledged delegates are allocated to candidates based on statewide vote totals, and the rest based on votes in each Congressional District, though some states use divisions other than congressional districts. For example, Texas uses
state Senate districts.
Districts which have voted Democratic in the past get more delegates, and fewer delegates are allocated for swing districts and Republican districts.
For example, House Speaker Pelosi's strongly Democratic
district 12 has 7 delegates, or one per 109,000 people, and a swing district,
CA-10
California's 10th congressional district is a congressional district in the U.S. state of California. Currently, the 10th district encompasses parts of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. It is currently represented by Democrat Mark DeSaulnier ...
, which became Democratic in 2018, has 4 delegates, or one per 190,000 people.
Candidate threshold
Candidates who received under 15% of the votes in a state or district didn't get any delegates from that area. Candidates who got 15% or more of the votes divided delegates in proportion to their votes.
These rules apply at the state level to state delegates and within each district for those delegates. The 15% threshold was established in 1992
to limit "fringe" candidates.
The threshold now means that any sector of the party (moderate, progressive, etc.) which produces many candidates, thus dividing supporters' votes, may win few delegates, even if it wins a majority of votes.
Schedule and results
!style="background: lightgrey;", 61
}
!style="background: lightgrey;", 49
}
!style="background: lightgrey;", 24
}
!style="background: lightgrey;", 7
}
!style="background: lightgrey;", 2
}
!style="background: lightgrey;", 2
}
Election day postponements and cancellations
Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is a part of the COVID-19 pandemic, worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). In the Uni ...
, a number of presidential primaries were rescheduled. On April 27, New York cancelled its primary altogether on the grounds that there was only one candidate left with an active campaign.
Andrew Yang responded with a lawsuit, arguing that the decision infringes on voting rights, and in early May, the judge ruled in favor of Yang.
In addition, the DNC elected to delay the
2020 Democratic National Convention
The 2020 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that was held from August 17 to 20, 2020, at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and virtually across the United States. At the convention, delegates of ...
from July 13–16 to August 17–20.
Candidates
Major candidates in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries had held significant elective office or received substantial media coverage.
Nearly 300 candidates who did not receive significant media coverage also filed with the
Federal Election Commission to run for president in the primary.
Nominee
Withdrew during the primaries
Other notable individuals who were not major candidates terminated their campaigns during the primaries:
*
Henry Hewes, real estate developer;
Right to Life
The right to life is the belief that a being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it as ...
nominee for
Mayor of
New York City in
1989
File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress Street Viaduct, Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxo ...
and
U.S. Senate from
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
in
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...
*
Sam Sloan, chess player and publisher (Ran for Congress in
NY-14)
*
Robby Wells
Robert Carr Wells Jr. (born April 10, 1968) is an American politician, perennial candidate and former college football coach. He was the head football coach at Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia for the 2008 and 2009 seasons.
Well ...
, former college football coach;
Independent candidate for president in
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
Withdrew before the primaries
Other notable individuals who were not major candidates terminated their campaigns before the primaries:
*
Ben Gleib, actor, comedian, satirist, and writer
*
Ami Horowitz
Ami Horowitz is an American conservative documentary filmmaker and activist. He is the writer, producer, and director of ''Ami on the Loose'', a satirical short film series made for Fox News. Horowitz co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the 20 ...
, conservative activist and documentary filmmaker (endorsed
Donald Trump)
*
Brian Moore, activist;
Green nominee for
U.S. Senate from
Florida in
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
;
Socialist and
Liberty Union nominee for
president in
2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
*
Ken Nwadike Jr., documentary filmmaker, motivational speaker, and peace activist
Political positions
Debates and forums
Primary election polling
Timeline
Ballot access
Filing for the primaries began in October 2019.
![Green check](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Green_check.svg)
indicates that the candidate was on the ballot for the primary contest,
![Check](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Check.svg)
indicates that the candidate was a recognized
write-in candidate, and
![Dark Red x](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Dark_Red_x.svg)
indicates that the candidate did not appear on the ballot in that state's contest.
![Yellow check](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Yellow_check.svg)
indicates that a candidate withdrew before the election but was still listed on the ballot.
Candidates listed in ''italics'' have suspended their campaigns.
National convention
The
2020 Democratic National Convention
The 2020 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that was held from August 17 to 20, 2020, at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and virtually across the United States. At the convention, delegates of ...
was scheduled to take place in
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, on July 13–16, 2020,
but was postponed and rescheduled to take place on August 17–20 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.
The event became a virtual "Convention Across America" with voting held online before the opening gavel, and the non-televised events held remotely over
ZOOM.
Endorsements
Campaign finance
This is an overview of the money being raised and spent by each campaign for the entire period running from January 1, 2017, to March 31, 2020, as it was reported to the
Federal Election Commission (FEC). Total raised is the sum of all individual contributions (large and small), loans from the candidate, and transfers from other campaign committees. The last column, Cash On Hand (COH), has been calculated by subtracting the "spent" amount from the "raised" amount, thereby showing the remaining cash each campaign had available for its future spending As of February 29, 2020, the major candidates have raised $989,234,992.08.
Maps
File:Democratic Party presidential primaries results by county, 2020.svg, Results by county according to first determining step relevant for delegate allocation. In Iowa, this is State Delegate Equivalents (SDEs) elected at precinct caucuses; in Nevada, this is County Convention Delegates (CCDs). In other states, this is the popular vote for each candidate.
File:2020 Democratic presidential primaries by delegate districts.svg, Results by delegate district (usually congressional district) by first preference vote. Darker colors denote greater support for the leading candidate.
See also
*
2020 United States presidential election
The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...
;National Conventions:
*
2020 Democratic National Convention
The 2020 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that was held from August 17 to 20, 2020, at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and virtually across the United States. At the convention, delegates of ...
*
2020 Republican National Convention
The 2020 Republican National Convention in which delegates of the United States Republican Party selected the party's nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election, was held from August 24 to 27, 202 ...
*
2020 Libertarian National Convention
The 2020 Libertarian National Convention delegates selected the Libertarian Party nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election. Primaries were held, but were preferential in nature and did not determ ...
*
2020 Green National Convention
The 2020 Green National Convention (GNC) or presidential nominating convention was an event in which delegates of the Green Party (United States), Green Party of the United States (GPUS) chose its nominees for President of the United States, pres ...
*
2020 Constitution Party National Convention
;Presidential primaries:
*
2020 Republican Party presidential primaries
Presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party took place in many U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories from February 3 to August 11, 2020, to elect most of the 2,550 delegates to send to the Republica ...
*
2020 Libertarian Party presidential primaries
The 2020 Libertarian Party presidential primaries and caucuses were a series of electoral contests to indicate non-binding preferences for the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate in the 2020 United States presidential election. These dif ...
*
2020 Green Party presidential primaries
The 2020 Green Party presidential primaries were a series of primary elections, caucuses and state conventions in which voters elected delegates to represent a candidate for the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States at the 20 ...
*
2020 Constitution Party presidential primaries
The 2020 Constitution Party presidential primaries were a series of primary elections determining the allocation of delegates in the selection of the Constitution Party's presidential nominee in the 2020 United States presidential election. On ...
Notes
References
{{U.S. presidential primaries
2019 in American politics
2020 elections in the United States
Political timelines of the 2020s by year
Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2020
Presidential primaries and caucuses were organized by the Democratic Party to select the 3,979 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention held on August 17–20 to determine the party's nominee for president in the 2020 Unit ...