US--Election 2020-Democratic Delegates, ADVISORY

Editors:

The Associated Press is updating its count of delegates won in the Democratic presidential primary to reflect an agreement reached Thursday between the campaigns of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That agreement will effectively allow Sanders to keep those delegates he should otherwise forfeit to Biden.

Under Democratic Party rules, Sanders is not eligible to win delegates based on the statewide vote in primaries and caucuses, because he is no longer seeking the party's nomination for president. Those delegates should move to Biden, as he is the only candidate still in the race.

Under the agreement, Sanders supporters will be selected to attend the party's national convention in those statewide delegate slots that Sanders would have won had he stayed in the race. While these delegates technically belong to Biden, they will be loyal to Sanders — both on the floor of the convention and on key party committees. As such, AP's delegate count will show them as Sanders delegates.

AP did not award any statewide delegates to Sanders in contests in Wisconsin, Alaska, Wyoming or Ohio, which were all held after Sanders quit the race. AP will now do so. In future contests, AP will allocate statewide delegates to Sanders based on the results in those contests and the agreement between the Biden and Sanders campaigns.

In the updated count, Biden has 1,406 delegates and Sanders has 974. It takes 1,991 pledged delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot at the party’s convention this summer.

The AP, Washington