NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, March 10th, 2020

Joe Biden triumphs in Idaho, taking another state that was in Sanders’ 2016 win column

For­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden appears well on his way to the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion tonight. After a stel­lar Super Tues­day, Biden is hav­ing a superb Mini Tues­day — or Super Tues­day 2 — this week. He’s won Mis­sis­sip­pi, Mis­souri, Michi­gan, and now, Ida­ho, the Gem State, home to 1.72 mil­lion people.

Ida­ho was square­ly in Bernie Sanders’ col­umn in 2016. The Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor from Ver­mont won the Ida­ho Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus­es that year con­vinc­ing­ly. He received 78.04% — almost four fifths — of the vote in the caucuses.

But, like Michi­gan, Maine, Min­neso­ta, and Okla­homa, Ida­ho Democ­rats are now giv­ing a plu­ral­i­ty of their sup­port to Biden for the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic nomination.

Ida­ho thus becomes the fifth state to have jumped from Sanders to Biden this year. (And Wash­ing­ton could become the sixth, if Biden ekes out a win here.)

As of press time, Biden had 48.29% of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic vote, while Sanders had 42.68%. Eliz­a­beth War­ren was far behind in third place at 2.82%, and Michael Bloomberg was in fourth place with 2.53%.

Idaho 2020 Democratic presidential primary results

AS OF 10:30 PM PACIFIC | MARCH 10TH, 2020

Can­di­date NameTotal VotesPer­cent­age
Joseph R. Biden46,42648.29%
Bernie Sanders41,03742.68%
Eliz­a­beth Warren2,7102.82%
Michael R. Bloomberg2,4282.53%
Pete Buttigieg1,3421.40%
Tul­si Gabbard7680.80%
Amy Klobuchar7270.76%
Andrew Yang2660.28%
Tom Stey­er1030.11%
Michael Ben­net890.09%
John K. Delaney500.05%
Cory Book­er470.05%
Mar­i­anne Williamson460.05%
Julian Cas­tro430.04%
Steve Burke300.03%
Roque De La Fuente200.02%
Deval Patrick120.01%

Ida­ho is a very Repub­li­can state, unlike Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon, so its pri­ma­ry par­tic­i­pa­tion is not lop­sided towards the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty like Wash­ing­ton’s is.

Notably, sev­er­al Repub­li­cans appeared on the Repub­li­can bal­lot along­side Don­ald Trump, includ­ing Bill Weld. Trump is still win­ning the Ida­ho Repub­li­can pri­ma­ry with ease, but these results are proof that there are at least some Repub­li­can vot­ers out there who would pre­fer a dif­fer­ent nom­i­nee. Trump’s rivals col­lec­tive­ly gar­nered over over 5,000 votes out of around 100,000 total votes cast.

The Wash­ing­ton State Repub­li­can Par­ty craft­ed rules explic­it­ly intend­ed to pre­vent any­one oth­er than Don­ald Trump from appear­ing on the 2020 pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry bal­lot. (There remained a write-in option, of course.)

Ida­ho will have twen­ty-five del­e­gates to the 2020 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Mil­wau­kee. Biden and Sanders will split those, as it appears no one else will reach via­bil­i­ty statewide or in Ida­ho’s two con­gres­sion­al districts.

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