2020 West Virginia Democratic presidential primary

West Virginia was previously scheduled to vote on May 12, 2020, alongside Nebraska, in the Democratic primaries, but on April 1 the primary was rescheduled by governor Jim Justice to June 9, 2020, setting it alongside the equally rescheduled Georgia primary.{{cite web|last1=Putnam|first1=Josh|title=The 2020 Presidential Primary Calendar|url=https://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2020-presidential-primary-calendar.html|publisher=Frontloading HQ|access-date=June 23, 2019}} Voting took place throughout the state from 6:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m.

In the semi-closed primary, candidates had to meet a threshold of 15 percent at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable. The 28 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention were allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of these, between 6 and 7 were allocated to each of the state's 3 congressional districts and another 3 were allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates), in addition to 6 at-large delegates. Originally planned with 24 delegates, the final number included a 20% bonus of 4 additional delegates on the original number of 16 district and 5 at-large delegates by the Democratic National Committee due to the original May date, which belonged to Stage III on the primary timetable.{{cite web|title=Democratic Timing Penalties and Bonuses|url=https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/D-Timing.phtml|publisher=The Green Papers|date=November 24, 2021|access-date=January 1, 2023}}{{cite web|title=The Math Behind the Democratic Delegate Allocation - 2020|url=https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/D-Alloc.phtml?sort=Unpl|publisher=The Green Papers|date=November 24, 2021|access-date=January 1, 2023}}

Following the election of district delegates to the district caucuses and the state convention on June 2, national convention district-level delegates were elected by the district caucuses during the state convention on June 12, 2020, and the 6 at-large and 3 pledged PLEO delegates were elected by the state executive committee the following day, also at the state convention. The delegation also included 6 unpledged PLEO delegates: 5 members of the Democratic National Committee and one senator from Congress.{{cite web|title=West Virginia Democratic Delegation 2020|url=https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/WV-D|publisher=The Green Papers|date=May 20, 2019|access-date=June 23, 2019}}

The following candidates qualified for the ballot in West Virginia:{{cite web |url=https://services.sos.wv.gov/apps/elections/candidate-search/ |title=Candidate Listing by Office |website=services.sos.wv.gov |access-date=February 12, 2020 |archive-date=February 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200209094443/http://services.sos.wv.gov/apps/elections/candidate-search/ |url-status=dead }}

Running

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• Joe Biden
• David Lee Rice

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Withdrawn

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• Michael Bennet
• Michael Bloomberg
• Pete Buttigieg
• Tulsi Gabbard
• Amy Klobuchar
• Deval Patrick
• Bernie Sanders
• Tom Steyer
• Elizabeth Warren
• Andrew Yang

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Four years earlier, Sanders won the West Virginia primary by a wide margin, 51 to 35, against Hillary Clinton. This was considered to be mainly based on a protest vote against Clinton and both her and the Obama administration's coal policies.{{Cite web|url=https://thinkprogress.org/how-anti-coal-bernie-sanders-won-coal-country-ca1a06fa0ec6#.g5d2lqlhy|title=How Anti-Coal Bernie Sanders Won Coal Country|website=ThinkProgress |date=2016-05-12|access-date=2016-09-24}} Many of the traditionally more conservative West Virginia Democrats went on to vote for Donald Trump.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-supporters-boost-bernie-sanders-west-virginia-n571791|title=Donald Trump Supporters Boost Bernie Sanders in West Virginia|work=NBC News|date=May 11, 2016 |access-date=2017-08-28|language=en}}

In 2020, the strength Sanders had among traditionally more conservative Democrats, protest vote or not, almost collapsed, with most of the support swinging to Joe Biden. Biden was the presumptive nominee at the time as Sanders had suspended his campaign shortly before, however, Sanders did notably better than in the Kentucky primary a few weeks later, which was another state were more conservative Democrats turned out for him in 2016. This is the first primary in which the Democratic primary had fewer votes than the GOP primary.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

In an indication of the alienation of the West Virginia Democratic Party from the national one, this primary marked the third consecutive time where a candidate only running in the West Virginia Democratic primary received a notable performance, with nationally obscure candidate David Lee Rice receiving 8.3% of the vote (a pattern which began in 2000, when local perennial candidate Angus McDonald won about 8%; since then, similarly unexpected results occurred in 2008 (then-withdrawn candidate John Edwards unexpectedly won about 7.5% of the vote), 2012 (Keith Judd, an imprisoned felon from California, won over 40%), and 2016 (Paul Farrell, a Huntington attorney, won about 9% and came close to winning a delegate from the state's southern congressional district).

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/WV-D The Green Papers delegate allocation summary]
• [http://www.wvdems.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2020-Delegate-selection-plan-.pdf West Virginia Democratic Party draft delegate selection plan]{{Dead link|date=January 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

{{2020 Democratic primaries}}

West Virginia Democratic

Democratic primary

2020

West Virginia Democratic primary, 2020