Ohio postpones primary from Mar. 17 to Jun. 2

By

Emily Aubert
Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing
March 17, 2020: Ohio and Kentucky have postponed their primaries until June.  blank    blankblank   

Ballotpedia is monitoring changes made to election dates and procedures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Here are the presidential primary updates you need to know:

  • Ohio: Gov. Mike DeWine announced that polls would be closed today by the order of the state Department of Health. This action came after a state judge declined to postpone the primary election. The election has been postponed to June 2, according to the secretary of state.

  • Kentucky: Secretary of State Michael Adams announced that Kentucky’s primary election, originally scheduled for May 19, would be postponed to June 23.

  • Today’s primaries in Arizona, Florida, and Illinois will continue as scheduled.

Poll Spotlight


Notable Quote of the Day

“For instance, the state with the biggest turnout increase from 2016 to 2020 was Colorado (+19 percentage points), but that datapoint can be quickly explained away: Colorado is one of the three states we analyzed that switched from caucuses to a state-run primary. (As this data demonstrates, primaries generally have much higher voter turnout than caucuses.) The other two states that switched to state-run primaries, Minnesota (+13 points) and Idaho (+6 points), also saw big jumps in turnout from 2016.

Colorado, Minnesota and Idaho were also among the only four states that significantly improved upon their 2008 turnout. As for the fourth state, Michigan, candidates did not bother competing in its 2008 ‘beauty contest’ primary, in which there were no delegates awarded based on its results after the state was determined to have violated Democratic Party rules about how early it could vote. In other words, there were structural changes to the primary process in each of the four states that saw the biggest increases in voter turnout from 2008 to 2020. As a result, we can’t attribute these turnout differences to an uptick in voter enthusiasm alone.”

– Nathaniel Rakich, FiveThirtyEight

Democrats

  • Joe Biden received endorsements from several Pennsylvania Democratic leaders on Monday: state House minority leader Frank Dermody, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, state Treasurer Joe Torsella, and DNC members Michael Nutter and Marian Tasco.

  • Biden held a virtual town hall with former surgeon general Vivek Murthy on Monday.

  • Bernie Sanders held a virtual campaign rally on Monday night, which featured Sanders and several campaign surrogates. He discussed the coronavirus, Medicare for All, and electability.

Republicans

Flashback: March 17, 2016

Ted Cruz released two ads in Utah and Arizona. One featured an endorsement from Sen. Mike Lee and the other focused on immigration.

Click here to learn more.