Although Bernie Sanders notched his seventh win in eight contests in the Wisconsin primary Tuesday night, many of them by landslide margins, he remains far behind Hillary Clinton in the Democratic delegate count.
The Democrats don’t do winner-take-all states, so all delegates are allocated in proportion to the vote a candidate receives in a state or congressional district. Proportional allocation has kept Sanders in the race up until this point, but it could be his death knell in the coming weeks as Clinton wins delegates even when she loses states badly. This makes it difficult for Sanders to ever catch up, even when he wins by a wide margin.
Sanders won by 13 points, but he only won an additional eleven delegates. Due to proportional distribution rules, Sanders won 47 delegates and Clinton, having captured 43 percent of the vote, won 36 delegates. Similar to the Wisconsin victory, Sanders’ unexpected win in Michigan last month only gained four more delegates than Clinton in the state.
Thus Sanders’ victories give his campaign momentum and keep his supporters engaged, but fail to change the delegate math much.
After Tuesday the current pledged delegate count has Clinton leading 1,279-1,027. In order to hit the 2,383 delegate count to clinch the nomination Sanders would need to win 67 percent of the remaining pledged delegates whereas Clinton only needs to win over 33 percent. These statistics do not include superdelegates, a group Clinton leads Sanders 469-31.
Looking forward, the remaining Democratic caucuses and primaries leave 1,977 pledged delegates up for grabs. Although Sanders is expected to perform well in some of the states, such as Wyoming, Oregon, and West Virginia, Clinton is also likely to win enough of the vote proportionally in those states to continue outpacing the Vermont senator in delegates.
