Biden wins Oregon primary

Former Vice President Joe Biden won Oregon’s presidential primary Tuesday, the latest notch on his belt on his march to the Democratic 2020 nomination.

The race was called by The Associated Press minutes after polls closed at 11 p.m. Eastern time. Biden won with roughly 70 percent of the vote with just more than 40 percent of precincts reporting.

The former vice president will take the lion’s share of Oregon’s 61 pledged delegates after besting Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Beaver State. 

Sanders suspended his presidential campaign last month but is remaining on primary ballots to try to rack up more delegates and influence the Democratic Party’s platform at its convention this summer. 

Tuesday’s contest was conducted entirely by mail. Oregon established vote-by-mail as the standard mechanism for voting in the state in 1998 after passing a citizen’s initiative. Other states have pushed for increased mail ballot options this year amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Biden’s victory in the deep-blue state comes as polling shows him leading President Trump in a head-to-head match-up in November, with the RealClearPolitics polling average showing the former vice president up 4.7 points. Polls also show Biden leading in a handful of key swing states, including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania.