Sanders opted not to request a full recount, which his campaign would have had to pay for. The recanvass would simply lead to a review of voting machine tallies and absentee ballots, to determine whether human error switched any of the reports to the secretary of state. At stake: One delegate from the sixth congressional district, which covers the state capitol in Frankfort and the state’s second largest city, Lexington, and where the initial count found a Clinton lead of just a few hundred votes.
That ONE delegate is really gonna close Hillary’s delegate lead of +280.
There’s a way to exit gracefully, Bernie. There really is.
In an effort to show inclusiveness, the DNC has given Sen. Bernie Sanders unusually high say in the make-up of the committee that will draft the party’s platform this year.
Sen. Bernie Sanders has been given highly unusual say over the drafting of the Democratic Party platform this year even if, as expected, he loses the primary contest to Hillary Clinton.
The two Democratic candidates have agreed with Democratic Party officials to a new apportionment of the 15-member committee that writes the platform, according to Democratic officials familiar with the compromise worked out this month.
Clinton has picked six members, and Sanders has named five — including a longtime activist on behalf of Palestinian rights, a potential sign of his plans to push the party’s policy on Israel in a different direction, the Democrats said Monday ahead of an expected announcement by the DNC.
The math is based on the number of popular votes each has received to date, one official said. Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz will name four. The campaign choices were selected in consultation with the campaigns and the DNC from larger slates of 12 and 10 suggested by the campaigns.
DNC rules allow the chairman to pick the entire slate of 15 people who govern the platform that will be presented at the party convention in July.
The change was made to be inclusive of Sanders supporters after the strong liberal challenge he mounted during a long and sometimes bitter primary.
Daily Kos ran this yesterday, and I think it speaks a lot to the animus some Bernie Sanders about the primary process so far.
According to Real Clear Politics there have been 21, 951, 362 votes cast in the 2016 Democratic primaries and caucuses. Of those votes Sen. Sanders is getting 43% of them while Clinton is getting 57% of them. Folks that is definitely not winning. In fact it is losing in a landslide. In 2008, for example, Clinton got around 47.8% of the vote while Obama got around 48.1% of the vote. For all of the talk about how Sanders is energizing the Democratic Party a significant majority of voters have not responded to his message.
Yet despite her lead in the popular vote there are many Sanders supporters who act as if her lead in delegates is somehow illegitimate. That somehow Sanders is being deprived of a victory by the way the rules are being applied.
Look Clinton’s lead in delegates is actually less than her lead in the popular vote. Right now she leads in delegates who are pledged to one candidate or the other, 1716 to 1433. This delegate count does not include super delegates. This means that Sanders is getting 46% of the delegates while only getting 43% of the vote. Clinton is getting only 54% of the delegates selected while she is receiving 57% of the vote. If anyone has a complaint with how delegates are being selected it is Clinton not Sanders.
Indeed it seems to be the position of the Sanders campaign that it doesn’t matter how big Clinton’s lead is in terms of the popular vote Sanders should still get the nomination. Why? Why should a political party nominate a person who is not winning the majority of the votes cast by that party’s primary and caucus voters?
The fact of the matter is that Sanders is losing the popular vote in the 2016 Democratic primaries and caucuses and unless that changes he should not be the Democratic Party’s nominee. On the other hand if he can overcome Clinton’s lead in the popular vote then he should be the Party’s nominee.
It’s also worth noting that while Sanders supporters are up in arms about “closed primaries” being unfair somehow, the fact is there have been 19 primaries open to independents, but Sanders only won 6 – two of which were his home stage of Vermont and New Hampshire. So, I’m not sure that “closed” primaries have been his biggest hurdle thus far.
Most importantly, I think folks should remember Clinton and Sanders are on the same side when it comes to the big picture.
In an oh-so-sly attempt to fracture the Democratic party come this November, presumptive GOP candidate Donald Trump has begun encouraging Sen. Bernie Sanders via Twitter to run this fall as an Independent due to his “unfair” treatment by the Dems.
“Bernie Sanders is being treated very badly by the Dems. The system is rigged against him. He should run as an independent! Run Bernie, run.”
As expected, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump won his primary in West Virginia. Trump also easily won the Republican primary in Nebraska on Tuesday, with no challengers left on the field.
Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary in West Virginia.
At this writing, it looks like Sanders will notch a victory in the neighborhood of +10 points, which means the delegate math between him and Hillary Clinton (who currently has a delegate lead of about 295) won’t change by more than a handful – possibly a 5-8 net gain for Sanders.
Chris Johnson of the Washington Blade is reporting that Sen. Bernie Sanders cancelled a scheduled meeting with HIV activists that was promised by his campaign just days before the New York Democratic primary.
The 30-minute meeting between Sanders and HIV advocates was set for May 3 in Indianapolis.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton had also agreed to meet the activists, who say they’re are still on track to meet with her Thursday for one hour in New York City.
Hilary McQuie, director of U.S. policy and grassroots mobilization for the HIV/AIDS group Health GAP, told the Blade the Sanders campaign had cancelled the meeting without explanation.
“He did cancel — no reason given and they have not rescheduled,” McQuie said. “We feel a bit burned by the bern, and hope they will answer our emails now.”
Peter Staley, a New York-based gay rights and HIV advocate, told the Blade HIV advocates before the unexpected cancellation were in daily contact with the Sanders campaign.
“They sent a ‘need to reschedule’ email last Sunday (for our Tuesday meeting), and then bizarrely stopped communications completely after that,” Staley said. “We’ve been emailing and calling every day since then, including warning them days ago about our intent to go public.”
According to a statement announcing the cancellation from the Brooklyn-based HIV and homeless advocacy group Housing Works, attendees were informed on April 30 the Sanders meeting was cancelled, which was two days after many of them purchased expensive, last-minute plane ticket to attend the event.
Although the Sanders campaign promised to “reschedule” as soon as possible, it has yet to propose a new date, time or city, the statement says.
The Sanders campaign didn’t respond to a request to comment late Sunday to confirm the meeting with HIV advocates was cancelled or to explain why the event would be nixed.
Hmm. You could almost get the sense that the Sanders campaign “played” the activists to appear more concerned about HIV than Sanders really is to get the support of the LGBT community which is strong in New York state.
I don’t know if that’s true, but seems like one of those things that make you go “hmmm….”
Sen. Bernie Sanders says the Democratic convention will be a “contested” convention because Hillary Clinton can’t get to the 2.383 delegate total without super-delegates.
His view is that the super-delegates from the states he won should align with him, and not Clinton.
However, the rules for super-delegates is that they are not bound by any metric when it comes down to who they vote for at the convention. Hillary Clinton currently has 2,165 delegates (including super-delegates). Sanders has 1,357 (including super-delegates).
I’m not sure why Sanders believes Clinton’s supers would jump ship when she’s winning both the delegate count and the popular vote.
Just a day after losing four of five state primaries for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he will be trimming campaign staffers by the hundreds, and shift his focus to winning the June 7th California contest.
Despite the changes, Mr. Sanders said he would remain in the race through the party’s summer convention and stressed that he hoped to bring staff members back on board if his political fortunes improved.
“We want to win as many delegates as we can, so we do not need workers now in states around country,” Mr. Sanders said in the interview. “We don’t need people right now in Connecticut. That election is over. We don’t need them in Maryland. So what we are going to do is allocate our resources to the 14 contests that remain, and that means that we are going to be cutting back on staff.”
When asked how many people would be let go, Mr. Sanders didn’t give an exact number but did say many people would be affected.
“It will be hundreds of staff members,” Mr. Sanders said. “We have had a very large staff, which was designed to deal with 50 states in this country; 40 of the states are now behind us. So we have had a great staff, great people.”
At last count, Sanders trails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by about 300 pledged delegates.
Super-stats guy Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website predicts that Clinton currently has an 89% chance of winning California.
Tim Robbins, actor and Bernie Sanders surrogate, made some noise last night on Twitter where he attempted to make the case that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is stealing the Democratic primary from Sanders based on his observation that actual results don’t match exit polls.
Of course, one yuuuge reason exit polls don’t match actual results is that Sanders’ supporters LOVE to stop and talk to exit pollsters about their candidate any time they are asked.
Sanders supporters believe that if you just pay attention to his message, you too would be voting for him. And the reason he’s not winning has to be a massive conspiracy.
Robbins responded to several commenters on Twitter saying “Thank you for following today’s talking points. Your check is in the mail,” meaning that standing on the side of logic equates being “bought off.”
One commenter shared a very important fact from super-stats guy Nate Silver:
Some politically-minded folks have begun asking if/when Sen. Bernie Sanders might consider ending his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in light of Hillary Clinton’s increasing lead in the delegate count.
While some call for Sanders to drop out now, there’s really no reason for him to do so; he has plenty of money, and as long as he’s in the race he has a voice.
But the Sanders team also has another gambit: super-delegates are going to start peeling off Clinton (the front-runner) and move to his column.
Sanders currently trails Clinton in pledged delegates, 1,428 to 1,151. The count increases to 1930 to 1,189 when including unbound superdelegates. The former secretary of State needs just 435 more delegates to secure the nomination before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia at the end of July.
Part of the reason why the Sanders campaign believes it’s still viable is his team says many of Clinton’s unbound superdelegates are getting ready to jump ship and throw their support behind the Vermont senator. Mook shot down that claim on Wednesday, saying it’s unrealistic.
I’m not sure what the logic is behind this “path to the nomination.”
Why would Democratic leaders in the party move away from the person with the most pledged delegates AND the highest popular vote count to move to the #2 guy?
Plus, don’t forget that just a month or so ago Sanders’ supporters bemoaned the idea of super-delegates saying the idea of them is unprincipled. Now he’s going to try and win based on super-delegates overturning the will of the popular vote?
Maybe I’m a little slow here, but I don’t see why anyone would do that.
