Joe Biden wins Hawaii presidential primary delayed by virus

Joe Biden won the Democratic Party of Hawaii’s party-run presidential primary on Saturday, which was delayed by more than a month because of the coronavirus.

Biden defeated Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders 63 per cent to 37 per cent.

Biden won 16 of Hawaii’s delegates and Sanders will take eight. Biden has a total of 1,566 delegates to the party’s national convention, according to the count by the Associated Press. He needs 1,991 delegates to win the nomination, a threshold he is projected to reach in June.

A total of 35,044 voters cast ballots in the party-run primary. All ballots were cast by mail.

The party had initially planned to hold the primary on April 4 and had expected most party members would vote by mail and some would cast ballots at about 20 in-person polling sites around the state.

It began mailing ballots to registered party members in early March back when Sanders and Biden were the two front-runners and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard was still maintaining her long-shot bid for the nomination.