After a series of crushing primary losses, Bernie Sanders will talk to his supporters and reevaluate his campaign.
“The next primary contest is at least three weeks away. Sen. Sanders is going to be having conversations with supporters to assess his campaign,” Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, said in a statement on Wednesday. “In the immediate term, however, he is focused on the government response to the coronavirus outbreak and ensuring that we take care of working people and the most vulnerable.”
The Vermont senator lost three major primary states to former vice president Joe Biden on Tuesday, Florida, Illinois, and Arizona, putting him at an insurmountable delegate disadvantage. Some nominating delegates for the primary contests so far are still being allocated, but Biden has 1,147 delegates while Sanders has 861. A candidate needs 1,991 pledged delegates to win the Democratic presidential nomination on the first ballot.
The statement from the Sanders campaign is vague, but history shows that candidates having to “assess” their bids usually drop out. The campaigns for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg each said after disappointing showings in March 3 Super Tuesday contests that the candidates would reassess their presidential bids, and then each quickly dropped out of the race.
