Voters in West Virginia will have their say in the Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, with 29 delegates up for grabs. Here’s how the delegates will be distributed once the votes are counted.
Polls close at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Total Delegates: 37, which is 2 percent of the delegates required to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Superdelegates: 8. Six are committed to Hillary Clinton, one is committed to Bernie Sanders, one is undecided.
Other delegates: 29. Proportional distribution. Nine of the delegates will be distributed proportionally according to the statewide vote. The remaining 20 are distributed amongst the state’s three congressional districts. Districts one and two get seven delegates, district three gets six. In each district, the delegates are distributed proportionally according to the district vote. Candidates must get 15 percent to earn any delegates statewide or in a congressional district.
The minimal amount of polling in West Virginia seems to give Sanders a 4-8 percentage point lead over Clinton. Let’s say Sanders wins the state with 53 percent of the vote and gets that proportion of the state’s non-superdelegates. Here’s how the delegate count would look:
Clinton: 14 delegates from West Virginia, 2,242 total (94 percent to clinching the nomination)
Sanders: 15 delegates from West Virginia, 1,469 total (62 percent to clinching the nomination)
On the Republican side, Donald Trump is the only remaining candidate for the GOP nomination. Even if he wins every delegate from now until the end of the race, Trump wouldn’t clinch the majority of delegates required until the very last day of GOP primaries: June 7. Republicans also vote Tuesday in Nebraska.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
