2020 Hawaii Democratic presidential primary


The 2020 Hawaii Democratic presidential primary, part of the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 United States Presidential election, took place by mail and ended May 22, 2020. It was originally scheduled to take place on April 4, 2020, but in-person voting was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, voters had until May 22 to submit mail-in ballots. The Hawaii primary was a closed, party-run primary. The state awards 33 delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 24 are pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary. Voters cast ranked choice voting ballots, with a voter's ballot counting for a backup ranked choice if their first choice was in last place and below the 15 percent threshold for winning delegates. Joe Biden won the primary, taking 63.2% of the vote after the distribution of preferences compared to Bernie Sanders 36.8%.

Procedure

Hawaii was to be one of four states holding presidential primaries on April 4, 2020, along with Alaska, Louisiana and Wyoming. All four states moved their dates back in order to make the primary all mail-in ballots. The Hawaii Democratic Party's draft delegate selection plan published on March 25, 2019, calls for a shift away from caucuses as in previous years to a party-run primary, also known as a firehouse primary, with a limited ranked choice voting system allowing voters to select their top three choices, in addition to accepting mail-in ballots from March 3 to March 28, 2020.
Voting with paper ballots will take place throughout the state from 7:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. In the closed party-run primary, candidates must meet a threshold of 15 percent at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable. The 22 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention will be allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of the 22 pledged delegates, 7 each are allocated to both of the state's 2 congressional districts and another 3 are allocated to party leaders and elected officials, in addition to 5 at-large pledged delegates. These delegate totals do not account for pledged delegate bonuses or penalties from timing or clustering.
Before the primary, precinct meetings will be held on Wednesday, March 4, 2020, to choose precinct level delegates for the state convention. National convention district-level delegates will be selected on Saturday and the state central committee will convene to designate the 5 pledged at-large and 3 PLEO delegates to send to the Democratic National Convention. The 22 pledged delegates Hawaii sends to the national convention will be joined by 9 unpledged PLEO delegates.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hawaii, in-person voting for the primary was cancelled, and the state convention was rescheduled from May 23–24, 2020 to September 5–6, 2020.

Results

The primary was conducted by ranked-choice voting. Voters were instructed to mark their top three choices on paper ballots. Any voter with a first choice other than Biden or Sanders had their ballot count in the final round if ranking one of those candidates as a second or third choice.
CandidateFirst
result		%Final
result		%Delegates
Joe Biden19,59356.0%21,21563.23%16
Bernie Sanders 10,77730.8%12,33736.77%8
Elizabeth Warren 1,6894.8%
Tulsi Gabbard 1,3773.9%
Michael Bloomberg 4601.3%
Andrew Yang 3401.0
Pete Buttigieg 3110.9
Uncommitted2910.8
Amy Klobuchar 930.3
Tom Steyer 340.1
Deval Patrick 110.0
Total34,976100.00%33,552100.00%24

The ballots were counted separately in each of Hawaii's two Congressional districts.