2020 North Dakota Democratic presidential caucus
The 2020 North Dakota Democratic presidential caucus took place on Tuesday, March 10, 2020, as one of several states voting the week after Super Tuesday in the Democratic Party presidential primaries for the 2020 presidential election. While the North Dakota contest in effect was an open party-run primary, the state party chose to retain the traditional caucus name and denominate it as a firehouce caucus instead of a primary. The state awarded 18 delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, of which 14 were pledged delegates allocated on the basis of the results  of the election. Bernie Sanders won the caucus as North Dakota was the lone state to vote in Sanders's favor on March 10. Procedure. North Dakota is one of 6 states (along with Democrats Abroad) which held primaries on March 10, 2020, one week after Super Tuesday. On March 13, 2019, the North Dakota Democratic–Nonpartisan League Party released its draft delegate selection plan, which moved away from the previous caucus system and called for the creation, in effect, of a party-run primary referred to by the party as a "firehouse caucus". Voting by mail began on January  20, 2020, and continued through March 5. On March 10, polls opened and closed simultaneously throughout the state, with in-person voting through a ballot system taking place between 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. in the Central Time Zone and from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. within the Mountain Time Zone at firehouse caucus locations across the state. Global Election Services (GES), a subsidiary of publicly traded Global Arena Holding, was retained to administer the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Presidential Primary election. In the open caucuses, candidates must meet a threshold of 15 percent statewide in order to be considered  viable. The 14 pledged delegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention will be allocated proportionally on the basis of the results of the firehouse caucus. Of the 14 pledged delegates, 9 correspond to the result of the statewide vote (coterminous with its sole congressional district) and another 2 are allocated to party leaders and elected officials (PLEO delegates), in addition to 3 at-large pledged delegates, both also according to the statewide vote. Differing from past custom the March primary as part of Stage I on the primary timetable received no bonus delegates, in order to disperse the primaries between  more different date clusters and keep too many states from hoarding on a March date. The state convention was set to meet in Minot on Saturday, March 21, 2020, to designate 9 national convention district delegates, followed by the meeting of the select committee on delegates on Saturday, April 4, 2020, during which the 3 pledged at-large and 2 PLEO delegates for the Democratic National Convention would have been designated. The 14 pledged delegates North Dakota sent to the national convention were joined by 4 unpledged PLEO delegates (4 members of the Democratic National Committee). On March 12, 2020 , the state convention was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. An alternate method of selecting delegates for the national convention has not yet been determined. Candidates. The following candidates qualified for the ballot in North Dakota: Running Withdrawn Results. All of the withdrawn candidates had withdrawn from the race while mail-in voting had already begun.