March 26, 2016 (2016-03-26) 2020 → Start date March 26, 2016 Delegate count 74 | 72.72% 27.10% Home state Vermont | |
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The 2016 Washington Democratic caucuses were held on March 26 in the U.S. state of Washington as one of the Democratic Party's primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
On the same day, Democratic caucuses were held in Alaska and Hawaii. While the Republican primary was later held on May 24, 2016.
Sanders overwhelmingly won the March 26 caucus which had about 230,000 participants, winning 72.7% of the state's legislative district delegates to Clinton's 27.1%, giving Sanders a net gain of 47 pledged delegates. However, Clinton managed a win in the non-binding primary held on May 24, 2016 with more than 802,754 voters.
Analysis
Sanders scored a landslide victory in the Washington caucus. His victory did not come as a huge surprise, since Seattle as a city had donated the most money per capita to the Bernie Sanders for President Campaign, and Washington state (particularly Seattle) has a history of electing far-left politicians including other self-proclaimed socialists to office. Sanders won all counties in the state on the day of the caucus.
Washington was a bit of a lost cause for Clinton. She had lost the Washington caucus eight years earlier to Barack Obama, and her husband had lost the caucus in 1992 to both Paul Tsongas and Jerry Brown.
At a rally in Wisconsin on March 26, Sanders told supporters “We knew from day one that politically we were going to have a hard time in the Deep South, but we knew things were going to improve when we headed west.”