The 2020 Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary took place on Tuesday, April 7, 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice election. It is one of the Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 presidential election. The Wisconsin primary is an open primary, with the state awarding 97 delegates, of which 84 are pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results of the primary. Although in-person voting took place on April 7, full results were not released until April 13, in accordance with a district court ruling. As of the primary on April 7, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were the only candidates left in the race. However, the next morning, before any of Wisconsin's results were released, Sanders dropped out of the race, leaving Biden as the party's presumed presidential nominee.
Procedure
Wisconsin was the sole state that voted on April 7, 2020, in the Democratic primaries. Voting took place throughout the state from 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. In the open primary, candidates must meet a threshold of 15% at the congressional district or statewide level in order to be considered viable. The 84 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention will be allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the primary. Of the 77 pledged delegates, between 5 and 11 are allocated to each of the state's 8 congressional districts and another 10 are allocated to party leaders and elected officials, in addition to 29 at-large pledged delegates. These delegate totals do not account for pledged delegate bonuses or penalties from timing or clustering. On Sunday, April 26, 2020, county caucuses will select delegates for congressional district caucuses which will take place on Sunday, May 17, 2020, which in turn designate national convention district-level delegates. The administrative committee meeting before the state convention will subsequently be on Friday, June 12, 2020, to vote on the 29 pledged at-large and 10 PLEO delegates to send to the Democratic National Convention. The 77 pledged delegates Wisconsin sends to the national convention will be joined by 13 unpledged PLEO delegates.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, several states delayed their scheduled primaries and extended the vote-by-mail period. Concerns were raised by health officials, poll workers, and voters that in-person voting at the height of the pandemic would be unsafe for vulnerable individuals. Governor Tony Evers signed an executive order for all-mail-in election, but the order was rejected by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature. On April 2, although U.S. District Judge William M. Conley refused to postpone the election, he extended the deadline for absentee voting to April 13. However, on April 6, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Conley's decision, meaning that all absentee ballots must still be postmarked by "election day, Tuesday, April 7" even though it will still be acceptable for the ballots to be received by the clerks as late as April 13. The Supreme Court of the United States, "did not alter the provision in Conley's amended order which prohibits the reporting of results until April 13". Governor Evers then called a special session of the legislature to postpone in-person voting, but the session ended within minutes without action, forcing the primary to go on as planned. Despite having previously expressed the view that he would violate the law by doing so, on April 6, Evers issued an executive order which, if enforced, would have postponed the April 7 elections until the tentative date of June 9. Republican leaders immediately announced that they would challenge the order in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Evers did not have the authority to postpone the elections, thus meaning that Evers' executive order was nullified, and that the elections would be held as scheduled on April 7. This was appealed to a federal court who sided with the Governor, and that was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which on a 5–4 vote, upheld the State court's ruling. Voting was somewhat chaotic, with people waiting in the rain for hours in some cases in masks and social distancing. However, by the time the election concluded, Milwaukee Election Commissioner Neil Albrecht stated that despite some of the problems, the in-person voting ran smoothly.
