The polls have closed in several states holding Democratic presidential primaries Tuesday, and the numbers are in. Here are a few brief thoughts:
Clinton wins, but by how much?
Lost in the fervent fight for the Republican nomination, many people probably didn’t know that Florida and Ohio were winner-take-all contests only on the GOP side. The only way to sweep delegates in Tuesday’s Democratic caucuses would have required winning enough votes to keep the opponent under 15 percent statewide and in congressional districts.
Under the GOP rules, Clinton would have won 100 more delegates from Florida and Ohio combined. Instead, it’s 100 more delegates for Sanders, who gets to keep Clinton that much farther from clinching the nomination.
Delegates
How soon could Clinton clinch the Democratic nomination? As of 10:45 p.m. she now has 62 percent of the required delegates (this does not yet include any delegates won in Illinois and Missouri). But even if she won every single Democratic delegate from here on out, Clinton wouldn’t clinch until April 26, when five states vote. That prospect is extremely unlikely, too. In most of the upcoming Democratic primaries, all Sanders has to do to keep Clinton from sweeping delegates is to earn 15 percent of the vote statewide or in a given congressional district.
Does this mean Sanders has a chance to win? Not really. At the moment, he’s won only 40 percent of the delegates that have been awarded in the primaries. That doesn’t include superdelegates, where Clinton has a huge lead. The betting markets give Sanders an eight percent chance to pull off the upset. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely.
What’s next?
The Democratic schedule differs from the Republican schedule a bit moving forward. Republicans vote in only three states between now and April 19. Democrats, however, vote in eight. They start on March 22 in Arizona, Idaho and Utah, which will distribute 149 delegates combined.
In those three states, there hasn’t been much recent polling. Arizona hasn’t been polled since November, while Idaho and Utah were polled most recently in February. All three states have a relatively high portion of Mormon voters. Their results will be interesting and informative for future states with many Mormon voters. For now, it’s hard to guess how Democratic Mormon voters will go since they haven’t had much opportunity to vote yet. The final results could be much different, but the most recent polls gave Sanders a two-point lead in Idaho and Clinton a seven-point lead in Utah.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
