Joe Biden could control the majority of Democratic delegates after Tuesday’s primaries, diluting Bernie Sanders’s ability to influence the party’s platform at this summer’s convention.
Biden has the opportunity to break through the 1,991 threshold of pledged delegates needed for the 2020 presidential nomination when a slew of states host their contests on June 2.
Prior to the Tuesday primaries, Biden had 1,566 of the 2,704 delegates declared so far in the 2020 primary cycle. Sanders, the Vermont senator who suspended his White House campaign in April but stayed on ballots across the country to continuing notching up support, had 1,007.
The math has Biden 425 delegates shy of becoming the Democratic Party’s next standard-bearer, with 474 up for grabs in the Tuesday round of voting.
Washington, D.C., Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota’s 89 delegates were always going to be decided on June 2. But June 2 became a primary calendar prize when election officials in Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island postponed their respective dates because of the coronavirus pandemic, putting their 385 delegates in play.
Although it’s a foregone conclusion that Biden will challenge President Trump for the White House in November, Sanders’s desire to push Democrats to the left of the political spectrum on issues such as healthcare and education has hindered Biden’s efforts to unite the party ahead of the fall fight.
In April, Biden agreed to Sanders keeping hundreds of delegates who would have represented him at the Democratic National Convention had he still been in the race. Under party rules, the senator was set to forfeit pledged statewide delegates because they can only be allocated proportionally based on primary results among candidates with bids afoot when they’re selected. A similar framework applied to seats on the party’s committees, which are scheduled to meet at the convention.
The pair’s agreement ensures Sanders and his supporters will have a voice at the convention as the party weighs what policies it wants to take to the general election. Sanders’s agenda has also been promoted in the Biden camp thanks to the formation of six policy task forces stacked with his backers, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Despite uncertainty regarding the format, Biden’s nomination is due to be rubber-stamped via a delegate floor vote at the convention from Aug. 17-20 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Two of the traditional five votes will no longer be considered by the entire delegation to avoid unnecessary contact at the event amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Tuesday’s eight primaries will be heavily reliant on mail-in voting as state and local officials worry about spreading the virus at polling stations. Washington’s contest was further complicated Monday when Mayor Muriel Bowser imposed a 7 p.m. curfew to quell violent protests against police brutality after George Floyd died in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department. Polls close in Washington at 8 p.m.
