MARCH 27, 2016
Photo: AP
Bernie Sanders swept the board on Saturday, winning Democratic caucuses by landslides in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington. The margins were huge — Sanders winning Hawaii 70%-30%, Washington 73%-27% and Alaska 82%-18% — and marked the first time that Sanders won all the contests held on a single day.
It was a triumph for the Vermont Senator and certainly a momentum-builder for the Sanders faithful, but how will this effect the course of the campaign? Bottom line: not much.
To begin with, whatever momentum Sanders may have built from winning Saturday’s contest may dissipate by the time voters get their next chance to cast their ballots — 10 days from now in the Wisconsin Democratic primary, where Hillary Clinton is heavily favored.
And while a win is a win, and Sanders won more delegates on Saturday, his margin of victory was 19 more delegates than Clinton. Before Saturday, she was leading him by 727 delegates, a huge margin to make up.
Here’s where they stand:
BERNIE SANDERS (won the Alaska, Hawaii and Washington caucuses and 54 delegates) — Sanders understands how caucuses work in a way that Clinton never has. (She blew off caucuses in 2008 as well, allowing Barack Obama to put his delegate lead out of reach.) Unlike Obama, though, Sanders has little support with African-American voters, who have helped to put Clinton over the top in delegate-rich states with primaries. He still has a number of caucuses ahead where he has cleaned up, but he needs some major wins in big delegate primaries to dig into Clinton’s huge lead.
HILLARY CLINTON (won zero caucuses and 35 delegates) — Because the Democratic contests are not winner-take-all, delegates are apportioned between the candidates, depending on which districts they win, even if they don’t actually win the state. That’s why Clinton managed to get a fair amount of delegates despite being skunked on Saturday. Still, headlines about Sanders’ “Big Mo” are never welcome, so Clinton needs an extra effort to make sure that the upcoming Wisconsin primary is in her corner.
Now, let’s go to the numbers:
DEMOCRATS (2,383 needed to win)
Hillary Clinton 1,677 (plus 35 pledged delegates won last night) = 1,712
Bernie Sanders 950 (plus 54 pledged delegates won last night) = 1,004
Next up is that big Wisconsin primary for both parties on April 5. Be there or be square!
