UPDATE: California delegate count - Sanders wins, but Biden gets a larger chunk than expected
Former Vice President Joe Biden will pick up a major haul of the 415 available pledged delegates coming out of California, though Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders will capture the largest share of the vote, according to the Associated Press.
With about 175,000 ballots left to count in the state for voters of all parties, as of Wednesday night, there’s little likely to change as the few outstanding votes continue to trickle in.
The Associated Press called the race for Sanders immediately after polls closed at 8 p.m. on election day, but Biden will take a larger-than-expected slice of delegates.
As of Wednesday afternoon, here’s how many pledged delegates the AP is reporting for each candidate:
- Bernie Sanders: 221
- Joe Biden: 172
- Elizabeth Warren: 12
- Mike Bloomberg: 9
The projections leave just one delegate up for grabs. Bloomberg and Warren could still drop slightly in the count, which is likeliest to benefit Biden and Sanders.
Bloomberg left the race the day after the March 3 primary, pledging his support to Biden. Warren announced her exit from the race on March 5 and has not yet backed a candidate.
Candidates must earn at least 15 percent support either statewide or within any number of the state’s 53 congressional districts in order to be eligible for a share of the state’s 415 delegates. Just five congressional districts and 24 of the state’s 58 have completely reported their results to the Secretary of State’s office.
Candidates must get 1,991 delegates to claim the Democratic nomination outright. If nobody hits that threshold, party leaders known as superdelegates will weigh in and prompt a contested convention.
California’s presidential primary election results are subject to some minor changes over the next month, given the lengthy counting process. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order giving counties an additional three weeks to count the results, meaning the state has until May 1 to issue its final certification.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 5:27 PM.