Hillary Clinton has already shifted her focus to attacking Donald Trump in preparation for the general election, but she might need to check her rearview mirror as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders still has multiple paths to overtaking Clinton.
1. Sanders overtakes Clinton in pledged delegates and then gets superdelegate support
It’s important to note that no candidate will be able to secure the Democratic nomination without the support of superdelegates.
“I think it is clear now to anybody who’s knows how to counts delegates that neither candidate, Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders is going to win a majority of the delegates to the Democratic convention with just pledged delegates.” Jeff Weaver, Sanders campaign manager said in late March. This same sentiment was repeated Thursday by the Clinton campaign when her spokesman said superdelegates will help put her over the 2,383 necessary delegates to win.
Currently, Sanders has 1,038 delegates, Clinton has 1,289 delegates. There are 1724 delegates left up for grabs and if the Vermont senator gets over 57.3 percent of them — at least 988 delegates — he will able to pass Hillary in the pledged delegate count. He would be able to lead her 2,026 delegates to 2,025 delegates at that point.
So far this election, he has gotten 44.6 percent of the available delegates — yet Sanders has performed much stronger outside of the South. The Vermont senator has won 52.2 percent of the delegates in non-Southern states and territories. There are no southern primaries left, so the map in that sense is favorable to Bernie.
However, a significant portion of the delegates left to be awarded come from Hillary-friendly states such as New York, California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. On top of this, Sanders has done best in caucus states, of which only four are left.
Sanders’ path will rely on upset wins, starting on April 19 in New York. The Democratic Party awards its delegates proportionally so the Vermont senator will need to perform consistently strong. To Sanders’ advantage many of the states left are heavily-white populated, which has been his base so far this cycle.
Below are the contests left. In bold are the ones most favorable to him.
California
New York
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Maryland
Indiana
Oregon
Puerto Rico
Connecticut
Kentucky
New Mexico
West Virginia
Rhode Island
Delaware
Montana
South Dakota
District of Columbia
North Dakota
Guam
Once Sanders overtakes Clinton’s pledged delegate count it will be up to him and his supporters to convince superdelegates to support the Vermont senator. These superdelegates are able to change who they support till the last minute and the Sanders campaign has made a note of pointing this out. Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said, “I’d also like to point out in 2008 some 120 superdelegates who were previously pledged to Secretary Clinton switched to President Obama once it became clear he was the stronger candidate.”
Bernie’s wife, Jane, even predicted a contested convention for the Democrats. A Sanders supporter has also launched a site called “Superdelegate List.” It was originally called “Superdelegate Hit List.” Sanders and his supporters will make the pitch that the superdelegates are effectively robbing the election from him as he would have the plurality of votes.
In addition to this, Sanders performs much stronger than Hillary Clinton in polls head-to-head against Republican candidates. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, Clinton leads Trump by 9.9 points and Sanders leads the New York real estate developer by 16.3 percent. The Vermont senator leads Ted Cruz by an average of 11.2 percent, Clinton does by just 3.4 percent.
“We’re going to make an argument that you should nominate Bernie Sanders,” Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Sanders has said.
Sanders’ path is certainly narrow but it is there.
2. Hillary Clinton gets indicted by the FBI
This route is possibly more direct than the one above, but Sanders shouldn’t depend on it and not only due to the uncertainty. The indictment would have to come before the convention, and it’s not certain whether Clinton would even drop out of the race if she were to get indicted. When Hillary was asked by Jorge Ramos whether she would drop out of the race for her private email usage as secretary of state, she deflected and said she wouldn’t get indicted. Former Jeb Bush campaign aide Tim Miller said recently, “Hillary would beat [Trump] from jail.”
3. Hillary dies.
Pretty self-explanatory, but it would have to come before the convention.