Sanders: Bernmentum will put superdelegates on the spot in Philly

Suuuuuuuure it will. Bernie Sanders easily bested Hillary Clinton in three caucuses over the weekend in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington. The margin of victory was 40 points or more in each state, and an exultant Sanders told ABC’s This Week that the parade of landslides would continue — and make superdelegates sweat out their support for Hillary in the end:

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“We won three landslides last night. We won six out of seven contests in the last 11 days. We’ve cut Secretary Clinton’s lead by a third during that period of time,” Sanders said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“A national poll just came out that had us 1 point ahead of Secretary Clinton, when we started 60 points behind,” he added. “And every national and state poll that I have seen, virtually every one, has us defeating Donald Trump. CNN had us defeating him by 20 points.” …

“And then I think the super-delegates are going to have make a very difficult decision, and that is if a candidate wins in a state by 40 or 50 points, who are you going to give your vote to?” he asked. “And second of all, which candidate is better positioned to defeat Trump or any of the other Republican candidates? I think a lot of the super-delegates are going to conclude that it’s Bernie Sanders.”

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Anything’s possible, but the parade of blowouts probably isn’t. The upcoming April 5th race in Wisconsin looks like a toss-up for the state’s 86 delegates, but after that it starts looking grim for Sanders. New York’s 247 delegates go on the block on April 19th, and Hillary has a huge lead in her home state of better than 2:1. With proportional allocation, Hillary could win 80 more delegates there alone, which is more than twice the gap of Sanders’ wins this weekend (34). On the 26th, the two biggest prizes — Pennsylvania and Maryland — also heavily favor Hillary. The RCP average in Pennsylvania has Hillary up exactly 2:1, and in Maryland her lead is slightly better than 2:1. Combined, that makes 284 delegates up for proportional allocation, and Hillary looks to get around 180 or more of them.

That doesn’t even consider delegate-rich states like New Jersey, where Clinton has another massive lead with somewhat older polling, or California, which is closer but where Sanders is unlikely to achieve a huge delegate advantage. Even after yesterday’s gains, Sanders trails Hillary by almost 250 pledged delegates even without considering the superdelegates. By the time April ends, that’s likely to be a higher number, perhaps significantly so. Sanders might not want superdelegates to consider his question seriously, as the parade of blowouts is much more likely to shift to his rival.

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Sanders had a good weekend, to be sure. He should enjoy it while it lasts. He could win in both Wisconsin and Wyoming, but absent a Hillary indictment, the big states will come and put an end to his dreams of a superdelegate revolt.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | December 16, 2024
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