After a series of disappointments on Super Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders picked up a big win in California. But the big question is whether he can amass enough delegates to offset Joe Biden’s eastern victories, and that will ultimately hinge on Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg.
California was called shortly after polls closed, which suggests a wide victory margin in the state for Sanders. With 415 delegates up for grabs (or more than 20% needed for the Democratic nomination), it carries enough juice to keep the race competitive.
However, California allocates all of those delegates proportionally among candidates who win at least 15% of the vote. One-third of them are doled out based on the statewide total, and the other two-thirds based on votes in each of the state’s 53 congressional districts.
So, if Sanders gets a big win and presumably Biden hits the threshold, the question then becomes how many ways will Sanders have to split up the big loot.
If it’s just split two ways, then Sanders should gain a huge windfall in the Golden State. But if Warren and Bloomberg start to creep into 15% statewide and/or in many congressional districts, suddenly Sanders has to split the delegates four ways. In that case, it becomes much more difficult to make up for Biden’s big victories in other states.
Given that California will keep accepting mail-in ballots through March 6 as long as they are postmarked by Tuesday, it could take days or even weeks before we know the final delegate numbers, depending on whether there are a lot of areas in which the losing candidates are hovering near the threshold.
