Politics in America usually feels like a game of "pick a side and stay there." But every once in a while, a candidate comes along who makes everyone—and I mean everyone—scratch their heads. Tulsi Gabbard was that candidate in 2020. People still ask: did any Democrats vote for Tulsi Gabbard, or was her support just a mirage of "likes" and retweets?
The short answer? Yes. Real, live Democrats walked into booths and checked the box for her. But the numbers tell a weird, complicated story about a campaign that was basically an island in a sea of traditional party politics.
The Raw Numbers: 2020 Primary Results
When you look at the hard data, Gabbard didn't just disappear into the ether. She actually stayed in the race longer than massive names like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand. While those heavy hitters dropped out before a single vote was cast, Tulsi was still on the ballot well into March 2020.
Honestly, her performance was modest, but it wasn't zero. Nationwide, she pulled in over 270,000 votes across the Democratic primaries. That’s a quarter of a million people who identified as Democrats (or voted in Democratic primaries) choosing her over Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders.
Her biggest "win"—if you can call it that—happened in American Samoa. She grabbed about 29% of the vote there on Super Tuesday. That performance earned her two pledged delegates. To put that in perspective, there were only about 350 total votes cast in that caucus, but it made her the only candidate other than Biden and Sanders to actually walk away with delegates that late in the game.
Why Her Supporters Didn't Look Like Typical Democrats
If you spent any time at a Tulsi rally, you'd notice something immediately: it felt different. It wasn't the usual "rah-rah" Democratic crowd. She had this weirdly specific coalition. You had the anti-war progressives who loved her stance on "regime change wars," but you also had a huge chunk of people who usually didn't vote in Democratic primaries at all.
The Independent Factor
In states with "open primaries," where anyone can vote in the Democratic contest regardless of their registration, Tulsi tended to do a bit better. She appealed to:
- Libertarians who liked her non-interventionist foreign policy.
- Disaffected Republicans who were tired of the GOP but couldn't stand the Democratic establishment.
- Young voters who found her through long-form podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience.
Basically, a lot of the "Democrats" who voted for her were Democrats of convenience. They were people who registered for the party specifically to support her or were independents taking advantage of primary rules.
The "Present" Vote Controversy
We can't talk about her Democratic support without mentioning the 2019 impeachment of Donald Trump. Gabbard was the only member of Congress to vote "Present" instead of "Yes" or "No."
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That single move was a massive turning point. It basically nuked her remaining support among mainstream Democratic voters. For many in the party, it was a betrayal. For her supporters, it was a sign of her "independent spirit." This divide is exactly why her vote counts in later states like Maryland or New York remained so low—usually under 1%.
Comparing Tulsi to the Field
It’s easy to say 270,000 votes is a lot of people, but in the grand scheme of a national election, she was a footnote. Let's look at how she stacked up in a few key states during the 2020 Democratic primary.
| State | Tulsi's Vote Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 9,764 | 3.3% |
| California | 33,769 | 0.6% |
| Texas | 8,630 | 0.4% |
| New York | 9,083 | 0.7% |
Numbers like 0.4% or 0.6% show that while some Democrats did vote for Tulsi Gabbard, they were a tiny minority. In most places, she was fighting with "Uncommitted" or "None of the Above" for fourth or fifth place.
The Shift: From Democrat to... Not
By the time she officially suspended her campaign on March 19, 2020, the writing was on the wall. She endorsed Joe Biden, which actually shocked some of her more hardcore "anti-establishment" supporters. But the relationship between her and the Democratic Party was already broken beyond repair.
She eventually left the party altogether in 2022. She claimed the party was under the "complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers." This evolution makes the question of who voted for her even more interesting. It suggests that her 2020 voters might have been the early wave of the "Walk Away" movement—voters who were technically Democrats at the time but were already halfway out the door.
What This Means for Today
If you're looking at the current political landscape, Tulsi's 2020 run was a bit of a crystal ball. It showed that there is a small but very loud segment of the electorate that doesn't fit into the "Blue Team" or "Red Team" boxes.
The Democrats who voted for her were often looking for something the party wasn't offering: a total rejection of the foreign policy status quo and a candidate who spent as much time on Fox News as she did on CNN.
Actionable Insights for Political Junkies
If you're trying to track how voters move between parties or why "outsider" candidates fail or succeed, keep these points in mind:
- Check Primary Rules: Always look at whether a state has "Open" or "Closed" primaries. A candidate's "Democratic" support often looks much higher in open states because of crossover voters.
- Follow the Media Path: Tulsi proved that you can bypass traditional media through podcasts, but she also proved that those "views" don't always translate to "votes" at the ballot box.
- Watch the Delegates: In a primary, votes are great, but delegates are the only currency that matters. Gabbard's 2 delegates from American Samoa are a reminder that small territories can give a "losing" candidate a seat at the table long after they've been written off.
The story of Tulsi Gabbard's Democratic votes is really a story about the fringes of the party. It reminds us that "Democrat" is a big tent, but even a big tent has limits on how much dissent it can hold before someone decides to leave and start their own show.
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Next Steps for Research:
You can verify these specific vote totals through the Federal Election Commission (FEC) 2020 primary reports or the official Secretary of State websites for New Hampshire and California. If you're interested in how her platform changed, compare her 2019 campaign website archives (via the Wayback Machine) to her current public statements.