Sanders Wins Coal State West Virginia. California, New Jersey now will Decide Nominee.
Sen. Bernie Sanders won West Virginia with a large gap, by 51% to 36% over Secretary Hillary Clinton. But, this has only caught him up by 7 delegates to Clinton’s overwhelming lead, because Democrats hold proportional primaries.
The number of coal miners has sharply declined due to fracking producing plentiful and cheaper natural gas. EPA’s very new regulations did not force this. Clinton and Sanders are basically the same in fighting global warming and desiring to provide relief and reeducation to miners. Sanders has just handled this better, and is seen as the outsider.
West Virginia has 37 Democratic delegates, of which 20 are from three congressional districts, 6 are at large, 3 are PLEOs, and 8 are Superdelegates. The three congressional districts have 7, 7, and 6 delegates. The two districts with 7 delegates split 4—3. With the large 15 percent lead statewide, in the district with 6 delegates, they lead must have been greater than 16.6%, since it overcame the 3—3 split to be a 4—2 split. So of the district delegates, Sanders got 12 and Clinton got 8. So Sanders got 60% and Clinton got 40%. The third candidate got none. So both Sanders and Clinton gained delegates over their vote percentages.
Of the 6 at-large delegates, they split 4 to Sanders and 2 to Clinton. Similarly, the 3 PLEOs split 2 to Sanders and 1 to Clinton.
So the 29 pledged delegates added 18 to Sanders, and 11 to Clinton, a gain of 7 delegates in the overall count. Among the 8 unpledged Superdelegates, 6 have now decided on Clinton, 1 on Sanders, and 1 still available. This mostly cancels Sanders’ gain, but the delegates go in different overall columns.
In the overall race to the nomination, there are 4,765 delegates, so winning takes 2,385 delegates. 714 of these are in theory unpledged Superdelegates, and 4,051 are pledged. According to CNN, Clinton has 1,719 pledged and 516 Superdelegates to total 2,235. Clinton is now only 150 delegates short. Sanders has 1,425 pledged and 41 Superdelegates to total 1,466.
In figuring if the nomination is not settled by June 7 when California and New Jersey come into play, there are 183 pledged delegates available in Kentucky, Oregon, Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico before then. Clinton, needing 150, would have to get 82% of them, which is highly unlikely. There may be more Superdelegates joining Clinton, but it looks like June 7 states will finally decide the nomination. California has 475 pledged delegates, and New Jersey 120 on that date.
