SALT LAKE CITY — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won Utah’s March 3 Democratic presidential primary with just over 36% of the vote, according to the final results released by the state elections office Tuesday.
The front-runner nationally, former Vice President Joe Biden, earned 18.4%.
Third place in Utah’s Super Tuesday primary went to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, followed by billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Other Democrats on the ballot received less than 1% of the vote.
Only Sanders and Biden are still in the race. Bloomberg, Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out of the running and have endorsed Biden, whose campaign saw a huge surge from winning the Feb. 29 Democratic primary in South Carolina. Warren has also dropped out but hasn’t endorsed either candidate.
Because Utah’s presidential primary was conducted largely by mail, many ballots were cast before the race shifted. But Sanders had been the big winner in Utah’s 2016 Democratic Party caucus vote over the eventual nominee, Hillary Clinton, and made a campaign stop at the Utah State Fairpark just before Election Day.
Bloomberg was by far the biggest spender in the Utah race, with more than $3 million in TV commercials and other advertising in addition to opening up two well-staffed campaign offices in the Salt Lake area. Buttigieg attracted some 4,500 Utahns to a campaign event and Klobuchar also made a stop in the state.
President Donald Trump easily won the Republican presidential primary in Utah, with nearly 88% of the vote.
Later Tuesday, the Utah Democratic Party announced the allocation of delegates for the Democratic National Convention where the party’s choice for president will be nominated. Only Sanders, Biden, Warren and Bloomberg met the 15% vote threshold to qualify for delegates.
Sanders received 16 delegates from Utah; Biden, seven; and Warren and Bloomberg, three each.
The Utah Democratic Party apportions 19 delegates among the four congressional districts, six on an at-large basis, and four are reserved for political leaders and elected officials. There are also six “superdelegates” from Utah who are not bound by the election results; they don’t participate in the initial round of convention voting.