The Bernie Sanders campaign has insisted repeatedly over the last month that even if they end up trailing Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates, they will be able to win the nomination by convincing super-delegates to switch allegiance to Sanders. Their argument for super-delegates to switch is based on general election polls that show Sanders out-performing Clinton in a one-on-one matchup versus Donald Trump. They admit it’s a long shot, but continue to press the case.
However, the idea that super-delegates will be convinced by this argument isn’t just unlikely. It’s a fantasy.
First of all, super-delegates are extraordinarily unlikely to overturn the pledged delegate count. They didn’t do it eight years ago when it was far closer, and they’re certainly not going to do it now. Clinton’s leading 55-45, not 50.5-49.5, and she’s leading no matter how you slice it (and yes, this includes open primaries). To overturn that result would be a slap in the face of the Democratic electorate. It would be especially bad for the Democratic Party’s image among minority voters, who have overwhelmingly favored Clinton and would be furious if the nomination were awarded to a white man in spite of the majority they helped build.
But let’s say they were willing to think about it, willing to listen to Bernie’s general election argument. What would they do then?
Well, they’d look at the polls. And they’d look carefully at them. And they’d see that Sanders’ current advantage in H2H polling is due almost entirely to his supporters not rallying behind Clinton (only 66% in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, as opposed to 88% of Clinton supporters who would back Sanders. That accounts for essentially entire difference). Then they’d look at Obama’s approval ratings among Sanders supporters, which remain quite high (82% in the same poll), and conclude that by and large Sanders’ supporters’ objection is not ideological — it’s personal.
And they would, correctly, attribute Clinton’s low favorability ratings to the Sanders campaign. His campaign has repeatedly attacked Clinton as corrupt — not explicitly, but it’s implicit in every inch of his message about her. They’ve also attacked the process as illegitimate, despite the fact that Sanders is losing by every conceivable metric that does not involve the support of birds. In contrast, Clinton has been extraordinarily careful not to attack Sanders too hard, fearing to alienate his supporters. That’s why 88% of her supporters say they’d vote for him in a general election. (Interesting side note: historically, this is the outlier. In 2008, numbers were in the low 60s on both sides. The anomaly this time is that Clinton has run an exceptionally positive campaign.)
There’s no way the super-delegates would give the nomination to Sanders under these circumstances. To give him the nomination wouldn’t just be a slap in the face to the voters — it would reward his campaign for tearing Clinton’s down. That’s why it has absolutely zero chance of happening. As vanishingly small as Sanders’ chance of winning the pledged delegate count is, it’s his only pathway to the nomination.