What is Bernie Sanders going to do?
In the battle for delegates, Hillary Clinton is destroying Sanders. Despite only winning two out of the three primaries, Clinton maintains a steady lead over Sanders. How is this even possible? The answer lies in the numbers.
For those of you who don’t know, in order to win the presidential nomination, a candidate must receive a certain number of delegates. In order to receive the Democratic nomination, a candidate must receive 2,382 out of 4,763 delegates.
According to the numbers, Hillary has 500 total delegates compared to Sander’s 70. But with only three primaries, we shouldn’t be seeing these numbers. In fact, when looking at the numbers won from primaries so far, Hillary and Sanders both have won 51 delegates each. So where do Clinton’s 449 extra delegates and Sander’s 19 extra delegates come in?
Short Answer: They are superdelegates. Superdelegates are a special kind of delegate: Regardless of the popular vote, they can cast their vote in favor of whoever they want. These 712 delegates make up 30 percent of the delegates needed to win the nomination. The Associated Press conducted an interview with 80 percent of the delegates last year. The results are bad news for Bernie: 359 were going for Clinton, 8 were for Sanders, and the rest remained undecided.
Why are so many superdelegates against Sanders? The same reason many voters are apprehensive: They don’t believe he is going to win. "He'd get killed!" said Rosalind Wyman, a DNC member from California. "A socialist independent?" Many people who aren’t feeling the Bern are deciding to hedge their bets and side with Clinton over Sanders. So what if she’s a flip flopping, corrupt liar who is counting on her gender to ride to a historic victory? At least she isn’t a democratic socialist.
So what is Bernie to do? The best thing he can do is try to win the rest of the primaries. If Bernie continues to be a successful challenge to Clinton and show that he can possibly win, these delegates may change their minds. The fact that he has come from being a joke candidate to winning one primary show he has some momentum. If he can carry that to more primary wins, he may be able to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat.
With 54 primaries (47 more states plus DC and some of our territories) left, Bernie has some time. Let’s see what he does with it.
