Biden wins all-mail Kansas primary

Former Vice President Joe Biden has won the Democratic presidential primary in Kansas, which was conducted fully through the mail.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, earned 77 percent of the vote and 29 of the state’s delegates, bringing him one step closer to clinching the nomination, The Associated Press reported on Sunday. 

The former vice president has 1,435 delegates out of the needed 1,991 to win the Democratic nomination, which he is expected to reach in June. 

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was still in the race at the time of the state’s primary, earned 10 delegates in the race. He has retained a total of 984 delegates, according to the AP. 

The Vermont senator won the state’s caucuses in 2016 over eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. But with the mail-in voting process, more than 400,000 votes were collected compared to the about 39,000 who voted in the 2016 primary.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced states, including Kansas, to restructure their primary processes. Kansas turned to mail-in voting with ranked-choice voting, where voters can choose more than one candidate and rank their preference. The candidates who do not reach 15 percent support are eliminated, and their voters are transferred to their second choice.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) also appeared on Kansas’s ballot. 

Kansas’s primary concluded how 39 of the state’s 45 national convention delegates would vote, with the other six being party leaders like Gov. Laura Kelly (D).

Kelly introduced a stay-at-home order for the state at the end of March, requiring people to remain in their homes except for specific circumstances, to avoid the community spread of the coronavirus. As of Saturday morning, Kansas has recorded 4,746 cases and 131 deaths, according to the Kansas Department of Health. 

The stay-at-home order expired Sunday.

Biden’s Sunday win also follows a week where his former staffer Tara Reade’s allegation of sexual assault against him has gained some traction. Reade’s former neighbor said last week that she was told about the alleged assault in the 1990s. 

Biden has denied the allegation.