After this week’s primaries in a handful of delegate-rich states on “Big (State) Tuesday” (March 15th) roughly 50% of the 4051 pledged delegates have been awarded up to now in the Democratic race for this year’s Presidential nomination.
After completion of the first half of this primary season Mrs. Clinton leads in pledged delegates by approximately 58 to 42 percent. While that’s not a blowout, it will be challenging to reverse that lead — very challenging, but not completely impossible.
Subsequently a few facts and reasons why it might be still a bit premature to call for finishing off this race at half-time:
(1) There are major regional differences in the percentage of pledged delegates awarded vs. delegates up for grabs:
- While most of the South has already voted, the vast majority of states in the Northeast and West have not voted yet.
(2) The electoral strengths and weaknesses of Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders also differ a lot depending on the region:
- Mrs. Clinton has been able to built a BIG delegate lead of 67 to 33 percent in the South. But in the South 83% of delegates have already been awarded while only 17% of delegates remain up for grabs (none of them in the “Deep South”)
It might be surprising for some people, but even after his shortcomings in this week’s “Big Tuesday” primaries Bernie Sanders still leads the pledged delegate count in the remaining three of four U.S. Census regions (sidenote: he would likely be ahead in the “Territories” as well if delegates chosen by Democrats abroad were added to this column — which I have already accounted for):
- Sanders leads by a significant margin of 59 to 41 percent in the NorthEast where a whopping 80% of delegates are still up for grabs
- He also leads — albeit by a much closer margin of 52 to 48 percent — in the West, where even 90%(!) of delegates are up for grabs
- Sanders leads by a similar narrow margin of 52 to 48 percent in the Midwest, where 27% of delegates are up for grabs
(3) With more and more contests ahead in the West and Northeast it seems quite reasonable to expect the delegate gap to narrow significantly over the next few weeks.
The main question seems not to be if the delegate gap will narrow, but by how much it will narrow.
In the end the gap might have been to big to overcome. Or not. But if Team Sanders quit at half time, Bernie would never know what might have unfolded if he kept on fighting until Wisconsin, New York and California.
Therefore I expect him to keep on running, keep on fighting, keep on picking up delegates, and taking his chances if he gets them.
After first half of the 2016 primary season, Bernie Sanders is undoubtely behind in delegates. But his delegate deficit primarily stems from the one region who has already awarded more than 4/5 of its delegates (South), whereas he is doing quite well electorally in those two regions where less than 1/5 of delegates have been assigned yet — with more than 4/5 of delegates up for grabs (West and Northeast).
Therefore Bernie is — undoubtely — down, but he is not out.
While Mrs. Clinton still remains the odds-on favorite to win the Democtratic nomination — none of us knows how the second quarter of 2016 will unfold…
The first half is over. The second half is just about to begin.
At the end I have only two questions for Bernie Supporters:
1) Are you fired up?
2) Are you ready to go?
If you are ready to go for the second half of this primary season:
Let’s begin the second half, let’s win the second half, and
let’s win it as big as possible!
Never forget:
The power to change this country always rests in the hands of the 99%, not the 1%.
If a democratic and peaceful political revolution is growing stronger day by day, one day it will become unstoppable.
EDIT: Typo in first chart corrected (WV instead of WY).