Joe wins primaries in New Jersey, Delaware
Former Vice President Joe Biden has won New Jersey’s mostly mail-in Democratic presidential primary and after his third run for the White House has finally won a presidential primary in his home state.
Biden, the last man standing from a Democratic field that once numbered more than 24 candidates, won Delaware’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, beating Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Sanders and Warren both suspended their campaigns months ago, but their names remained on Tuesday’s ballot because they did not officially withdraw as candidates in Delaware by the March 6 deadline. Warren suspended her campaign just one day before the deadline, while Sanders didn’t stop campaigning until April.
Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer also had filed for Delaware’s primary but withdrew their names in early March.
Tuesday’s election was the first in Delaware to feature universal absentee voting, with absentee ballots having been sent to every registered Democrat and Republican in the state. Under Democratic Gov. John Carney’s emergency coronavirus declarations, any voter could choose “sick or temporarily or permanently physically disabled” and be eligible to vote absentee.
New Jersey’s already-late primary got pushed a month later because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy mandated that the election take place mostly by mail-in ballots.
New Jersey’s 14 electoral votes have gone to Democrats in every presidential election since 1988.