Senator Bernie Sanders swept the Democratic caucuses in Washington State, Alaska and Hawaii on Saturday and claimed a strong momentum in the race for party nomination, but front-runner Hillary Clinton continues to have a commanding overall lead in delegates.
“We knew things would begin to improve when we moved West. We are making significant inroads in Secretary Clinton’s lead and we have a path toward victory,” an elated Sanders told his supporters on a day when his formidable opponent came a cropper in the three Western States.
It was a virtual landslide everywhere for the Senator from Vermont. He captured 82 per cent of the votes in Alaska, 73 per cent in Washington State and 70 per cent in Hawaii.
But Clinton was way ahead in the delegate count, having secured 1,243 pledged delegates thus far against Sanders’ 975. Additionally, Clinton also has a disproportionately large share of ‘superdelegates’ – 469 against a mere 29 with Sanders.
Clinton’s overall aggregate now stands at 1,712 and Sanders’ at 1,004. To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate needs 2,383 delegates. There are 2,049 delegates still up for grabs in the remaining primaries.
The Sanders campaign believes that with Clinton takes her large pool of superdelegates for granted, arguing that the Senator’s spirited campaign and strong performance, the superdelegates can swing to his favour at the Democratic convention in July.
“Superdelegates want (the Democratic Party) to win in November,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN, adding: “I think superdelegates are going to begin to take another look.”
Sanders, according to an Associated Press projection, needs to win more than 57 per cent of the remaining delegates from primaries and caucuses to secure a majority of delegates by end of June. An analysis by ABC News estimated that Sanders may have to win as high as 73 per cent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination.
“No, I don’t accept that. That is not the case,” Sanders said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week”. “I will not deny for one second that we still remain the underdogs, but we have come a long, long way, you will have to concede, in the last 10 months. We do have a path toward victory,” he said.
“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,” he said.
Sanders has sought to keep up the morale of his flock of predominantly young supporters, saying: “It is hard for anybody to deny that our campaign has the momentum.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you we can’t win the nomination or win the general election. We’re going to do both those things,” he said in his victory speech in Wisconsin, the State that holds the next primary on April 5. His recent string of victories will also help Sanders raise more money for the remaining primaries.