Last night Hillary Clinton’s big win over Bernie Sanders puts the Vermont senator in a very tough spot in his battle to beat the former Secretary of State for the Democratic presidential nomination. Math is Sanders biggest problem with five more Clinton friendly states coming up a week from now.
As of this morning, Clinton was able to grow her lead to 277, picking up another 33 delegates. There were 247 delegates up for grabs in New York. At this point she finished the New York primary with 1,428 pledged delegates, compared to 1,151 for Sanders.
Meanwhile, when you factor in the superdelegates — party leaders who can support any candidate — Clinton’s total grows to 1,897 and Sanders’ to 1,182, according to the AP.
On the Democratic side a candidate needs 2,383 to secure the Democratic nomination, putting Clinton about 80 percent of the way there. Sanders is only halfway there, with about 56 percent of unpledged delegates having already been awarded.
At this point there are 1,400 pledged delegates still in play, Clinton would only need to win 35 percent of them to secure the nomination, even if she didn’t gain another superdelegate. So, she was upbeat as she took the stage last night.
“The race for the Democratic nomination is in the homestretch, and victory is in sight,” Clinton said in New York City on Tuesday night.
Here is where the math makes things even tougher for Sanders, has a near impossible path to 2,383. He would need to win about 1,200 of the remaining pledged delegates if he didn’t gain another superdelegate, or more than 85 percent, to secure the nomination before the Democratic National Convention in July.
Sanders has targeted the nearly 200 superdelegates still up for grabs, and at the moment there is no indication that the Vermont senator is getting any love from those un committed delegates.
Last night on MSNBC they mapped out the path left for Sanders to win the nomination.
“I’m not saying this is impossible for Bernie Sanders, but when you are more than 200 pledged delegates behind at this point in the campaign, you have zero margin for error,” said MSNBC political anchor Steve Kornacki.
