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I'm Carrie Dan. It has not been an awesome time to be a caucus. There was the debacle that was the Iowa caucus when it took days to report the results, and then even those had errors. And there were multiple sets of results that resulted in multiple people claiming victory.
And then there was Nevada, which was, well, I guess, less bad, but also included some confusion and late results and inconsistencies. After that, even the Democratic Party chairman in that state said, yeah, maybe caucuses aren't the best idea going forward. And almost everyone seems to agree, but there is one person who is probably worse off because of the bad rap that caucuses have gotten. And that would be probably Bernie Sanders.
That's because caucuses have been his jam, man. In 2016, here are the states not called Iowa or Nevada that chose to hold caucuses rather than primaries to award their delegates in the Democratic primary process. Minnesota, Idaho, Washington, North Dakota, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, and Wyoming. Guess what all of those states have in common?
Bernie Sanders won them in 2016. The caucus format was just really, really good for him. And by the way, caucuses were also a good format for Barack Obama back in 2008 when he also racked up a lot of delegates in contests like that. Caucuses require commitment and more time than voting in a primary.
They're good for passionate activists who are really skilled at arguing their case. They reward enthusiasm for candidates. Hillary Clinton also argued that they're less accessible to shift workers and minorities and maybe less Democratic overall. Here's the thing about caucuses.
There are a lot fewer of them than there were in 2016. This cycle outside of the US territories, places like Guam, there are only caucuses in Iowa, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming. And we've already seen some of the disadvantage that has all wrought for Bernie Sanders. In Minnesota, for example, Sanders absolutely romped in the caucus here, getting more than 60% of the vote.
On Super Tuesday, a week ago, Albeit, in a more crowded field, Sanders lost decisively to Joe Biden in Minnesota, getting just about 30% of the vote. In Colorado, Sanders did win in both contests in 2016 and 2020, but by a far lower margin last week than four years ago. And win by a lower margin equals fewer delegates. Which brings me to maybe one of the best test cases of this theory comes up today in Washington state.
Washington had a caucus in 2016, which Sanders won with nearly three quarters of the vote. But, and this is the interesting part, the state also held a primary in that same year. It just didn't count for the delegate allocation. And in that case, Hillary Clinton actually won that contest.
This time around, Washington is using a primary to award its delegates. And it's really a black box for all of us. We really don't know how it's gonna go. It's a state where the entire vote is counted by mailing ballots.
It's also known as being a very progressive place. There's also not a ton of polling out there for us to determine anything about. And of course, it has particularly been hard hit by the coronavirus. So there are a lot of unknown factors here.
But if the theory is right, that there's a big gap in Sanders' performance in primaries versus caucuses, especially now that it's a two-man race, well, Washington state could end up being a lost opportunity for Sanders to rack up delegates that he desperately needs. That's a live for us. If you'd like to hear more of this free audio briefing, you can always download us on your favorite podcast app.