Bernie Sanders: Path To Democratic Nomination Increasingly Improbable

Following Bernie Sanders’ staggering loss to Hillary Clinton on Super Tuesday 3 (March 15), many political strategists expected the Vermont senator to throw in the towel. However, as CNN reports, despite a landslide win by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders has refused to throw in the towel just yet. Rather, Sanders has pledged to stay in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination until the bitter end.

However, despite his enthusiasm and resolve, the path to the Democratic nomination is becoming increasingly improbable for Vermont Senator Sanders. Some media outlets are even calling the mathematics involved in picking up enough delegates to topple Clinton “all but impossible.”

Currently, the Democratic delegates are leaning heavily in Clinton’s favor. She’s holding onto 1,147 pledged delegates and 467 superdelegates. Bernie Sanders has 830 and 26, respectively. The pledged delegates are committed to “their” candidate as a result of primary election results. Superdelegates can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of state primary outcomes. In order to clinch the Democratic nomination, a candidate must reach 2,383 delegates.

Hillary swept the Super Tuesday 3 primaries, winning several states in virtual “landslides.” While it was touch and go for a while in Missouri, Bernie Sanders ultimately conceded that race (which was within a percentage point) to Clinton. Since, as Vox reports, Democratic delegates are allocated proportionately, close races don’t really make a big difference, as both candidates end up with roughly the same number of delegates at the end of the day. However, in “landslide” victories, the dispersion of delegates is also proportional, and that opens up the door for one candidate or the other to pick up more. On Super Tuesday 3, that candidate (much to Bernie Sanders’ chagrin) was Hillary.

Now, if Bernie Sanders has any hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, he’s going to have to win virtually every remaining state primary, and by substantial margins. Even close victories by Bernie Sanders in the remaining states will result in the delegates being split fairly evenly by Sanders and Clinton, which won’t help Sanders close the over 300 pledged delegate gap between himself and the Democratic frontrunner. This, of course, is not even taking into consideration the superdelegates, in which Sanders trails Hillary by over 400.

In order for Bernie Sanders to win the majority of pledged delegates in the 2016 Democratic primary, he’s going to need to win 58 percent of the ones remaining in the race. While that may not sound like an unrealistic number, it is going to be almost insurmountably difficult for Bernie to pull off, given the proportional allotment of Democratic delegates.

If Sanders has a chance of getting enough delegates, he is going to have to beat Clinton by about 16 percentage points in virtually all of the remaining state primary races (meaning Bernie Sanders needs to be coming in at 58 percent to Hillary’s 42 percent). Given Bernie Sanders’ track record, and particularly if Super Tuesday 3 is any indication of what we can expect in the way of future Sanders performance, this seems “incredibly implausible.”

For example, even if Bernie Sanders manages to rake in wins in big delegate states like New York, Pennsylvania, California, and New Jersey (something that virtually no political pundits are expecting to happen, mind you), even merely unexpected wins wouldn’t be enough. Sanders would have to win those states (which are predicted to go fairly easily to Hillary Clinton) by incredibly big margins to make any headway.

It’s also important to consider the demographics of the remaining states. Many of the states (and territories) which haven’t yet cast their primary votes have large non-white populations. These areas, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico, have precisely the demographics that have, thus far, overwhelmingly favored Clinton. It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which Bernie Sanders can not just win, but win big.

Even though the possibility of a President Bernie Sanders seems to be becoming less and less likely, according to Politico, the Sanders campaign has a plan to move forward. According to sources within the campaign, Bernie Sanders is banking on keeping the remaining primary races as close as possible as well as betting on getting his hands on enough superdelegates to reach the magic delegate number of 2,383.

“The stakes are so high in November, the superdelegates will feel a special responsibility this time around.”

Not surprisingly, the Clinton campaign isn’t putting much stock in this “long-shot” Bernie Sanders strategy, which would likely require a large number of superdelegates switching allegiance at the Democratic National Convention.

“We have never seen superdelegates skew an outcome. I don’t expect it to happen this time either. We’re democrats with a small ‘d’ and a big ‘D.'”

It remains to be seen whether or not Bernie Sanders and the Sanders campaign will be able to realistically hold on until the Democratic National Convention, which runs from July 25-28 in Philadelphia.

[Image Courtesy Of Ralph Freso/Getty Images]