With his win in West Virginia Tuesday and collection of 18 delegates, Bernie Sanders seemed to slow down the inevitable: Hillary Clinton becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
With 2,240 delegates, Clinton is now 94 percent of the way to clinching the nomination. But Sanders has repeatedly said he will contest the convention if Clinton fails to get to a majority of all delegates without the use of superdelegates.
How likely is it that Clinton will earn 2,382 non-superdelegates? Not very.
Clinton has won 1,716 non-superdelegates. She would need to win 74 percent of the remaining 897 non-superdelegates to get to 2,383.
That’s unlikely to happen for two reasons. For one, she’s won only 55 percent of non-superdelegates so far. For another, even though she seems likely to win the two largest remaining states, California and New Jersey, recent polls don’t show her getting more than 60 percent of the vote.
The further Clinton is from 2,383 without superdelegates, the more likely it is Sanders would contest the convention. If she only needs to convince 10 superdelegates to back her, on top of her non-superdelegates, then it would seem futile for Sanders to attempt to contest. If she needs 500 superdelegates to back her, then Sanders would probably spend the month between the last primary and the convention trying to coax a handful of delegates to his side.
Let’s say Clinton gets 60 percent of the remaining non-superdelegates (which seems a touch optimistic for her). She’d end up with 2,254 non-superdelegates. Technically, Sanders could contest the convention. But he’d have to convince at least 395 Clinton superdelegates to switch their support, and that’s assuming she doesn’t gain any more superdelegates between now and then.
If Clinton comes up short in non-superdelegates, Sanders could choose to contest the convention anyway. He and his delegates could seek changes to the party’s platform, as Sanders wrote in a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Publicly, Sanders has said he plans to contest the convention if he passes Clinton in non-superdelegates. It’s less clear if he’ll contest it if he fails to do so. Even though Clinton seems unlikely to get to 2,383 without superdelegates, it seems even less likely that Sanders will be able to pass her in non-superdelegates. He’d have to win more than 70 percent of the remaining delegates; he’s only won 46 percent so far.
There will be three points in the next month that may provide opportunities for Sanders to drop out. When Clinton passes 2,383 delegates with the help of superdelegates (possible, but unlikely to happen on May 17), when Clinton clinches more non-superdelegates than Sanders (not possible until June 7), or after the final primary (the District of Columbia votes on June 14). Keep an eye out.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
