Colorado Politics

ELECTION 2020 | Sanders, Biden shares of Colorado delegates climb after Warren drops out

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden saw their delegate numbers from Colorado’s presidential primary increase on Thursday following Elizabeth Warren’s withdrawal from the race.

As things stand, Sanders, the Vermont senator who won the popular vote in Tuesday’s election, is expected to emerge with 29 of Colorado’s 67 pledged delegates, and Biden, the former vice president, is expected to receive 21 delegates, according to the Colorado Democratic Party’s analysis of unofficial vote totals.

Warren, the Massachusetts senator, is on track to get eight delegates, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who exited the race and endorsed Biden on Wednesday, should wind up with nine delegates.

The state party hands out 23 of its delegates to the Democratic National Convention based on candidates’ share of the statewide vote, and apportions another 44 delegates based on performance in each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts.

Candidates must receive at least 15% of the vote statewide or in any of the congressional districts to qualify for delegates.

Thursday’s reshuffling occurred because candidates who suspend their campaigns can still collect congressional district delegates but are no longer eligible for statewide delegates under DNC rules, so the five delegates Warren had accumulated based on her fourth-place finish got divvied up between Sanders and Biden.

In addition, the Colorado Democrats shifted one delegate from Bloomberg to Biden after Colorado Politics pointed out an error in the party’s distribution report.

Since the party’s initial estimates posted Wednesday, Sanders has netted two additional delegates. Biden wound up with four more, Warren lost five and Bloomberg lost one.

The delegate allocations are preliminary, a party spokesman said, and could change as additional votes are counted.

Returns posted by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office through 5 p.m Thursday showed Sanders leading the field statewide with 36.78% of the vote, followed by Biden at 24.6%, Bloomberg at 18.72% and Warren at 17.61%.

The only other major candidate still in the race, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, had 1.05% of the statewide vote, far below the threshold to qualify for delegates.

Four Democrats whose names appeared on the ballot – former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and former Maryland Rep. John Delaney – notified the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office that they were formally withdrawing from the race, so their votes weren’t counted and didn’t figure in the delegate math.

On the Republican side, President Donald Trump has won all of Colorado’s 34 pledged delegates to the Republican National Convention. The GOP awards delegates on a winner-take-all basis to candidates who get at least 50% of the statewide vote, a mark Trump easily surpassed.

At 5 p.m. Thursday, Trump had 92.29% of the vote in a six-candidate field. Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld had 3.55%, and former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who withdrew from the race a month ago, had 1.86%.

Around 70,000 ballots cast in the Democratic and Republican primaries remain to be counted, according to figures released by election officials. County clerks are also waiting until March 12 to receive mail ballots returned by military and overseas voters.

Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., former Vice President Joe Biden talk before a Democratic presidential primary debate on Feb. 25, 2020, in Charleston, S.C.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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