Biden wins Hawaii primary but still short of enough delegates to clinch nomination
Joe Biden has won the Hawaii primary, picking up 16 delegates, the Hawaii Democratic Party says . Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, now has 1,531 total delegates, still short of the 1,991 needed to clinch the nomination.
Bernie Sanders won 8 delegates. In 2016, Sanders won the state's caucuses, taking 17 delegates to Hillary Clinton's 8.
Hawaii's primary was initially scheduled for April 4 with in-person voting, but was changed to entirely vote-by-mail and postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. According to CBS Honolulu affiliate KGMB, the decision to make the primary entirely vote-by-mail was made before the state's stay-at-home order went into effect, and most ballots were mailed in early March.
"Because we had made the decision to have a mail-in ballot before the stay-at-home order, we didn't have to adjust our plan significantly to accommodate voters," Hawaii Democratic Party Interim Chair Kate Stanley told KGMB.
A number of states have yet to hold primaries, and more than 600 delegates are up for grabs on June 2. New York, the fourth-most populous state in the country, is set to hold its primary June 23. The state Board of Elections in April called off the primary, but a federal judge earlier this month restored the primary, calling its cancellation unconstitutional.
