Closing on the Real Super Tuesday and the Clinton Nomination
Two days from the Real Super Tuesday, Clinton has won the Puerto Rico Primary and closes on the nomination. Clinton now has a total of 2,355 delegates, which is only 28 short of the 2,383 needed for the nomination. Sanders has a total of 1,562 delegates. Of pledged delegates earned in primaries and caucuses, Clinton has 1,807 and Sanders has 1,516, which means he is behind by 291, or 16% of Clinton’s pledged delegates.
Of the 714 Superdelegates, which are party members holding office or the party directors who lead statewide and national campaigns, Clinton has 548, or 77%, and Sanders has 46, or 6.4%. That leaves 17% or 1/6 or 120 left to commit. Sanders intends to fight for even the committed superdelegates, since they can change their commitment until they vote in the convention. The political effects on Democratic Party unity will be much discussed over the next six weeks until the convention and then the consequences beyond that. This election has very little precedent for both parties. It is also possible that Sanders will relent after Tuesday, but he cannot ask people to go to the polls to vote for him on Tuesday, if he tells them that he will be quitting on Wednesday.
The reason that Sanders leads in the polls over Clinton is that it is Trump’s campaign strategy. Trump has not criticized Sanders, because Trump will benefit from the disunity in the Democratic Party. You can be sure that if Sanders becomes the candidate, Trump will attack him unmercifully, and Sanders would sink in the polls. The Clinton’s have already suffered from decades of attacks, which is why Hillary Clinton is not trusted much by the public.
Let’s review the Real Super Tuesday on June 7. California leads with 475 pledged delegates, or 11.7% of all pledged delegates, because it has the largest population and is strongly Democratic. California has 548 total delegates, or 11.5% of the total 4,765 delegates. Sanders has been spending all of his recent campaigning time in California. I call it the Real Super Tuesday after Southern California’s TV shows that start with “Real”. March 1 was really the largest super Tuesday.
Next comes New Jersey with 126 pledged delegates. These should split for Clinton since she is well known from her neighboring state of New York and Sanders has not campaigned there. New Jersey was described in detail in a previous post. Since Clinton is only behind by 28 votes now, she will win the nomination when the New Jersey polls close at 8:00 PM EST, or 5:00 PM California time. People speculate that this will affect the Sanders late vote in California, since our polls do not close until 8:00 PM PST. However, since Sanders supporters seem more motivated, and Clinton’s older supporters don’t like to go out after 5 PM, Sanders could be be advantaged by this. Many in California vote by mail.
Update: This evening, AP and CBS News claims that Hillary Clinton now has 2,383 delegates, and will be the first female Presidential candidate of a major party. How will this affect the vote on Tuesday in all of the primary states?
The other states on the Real Super Tuesday are New Mexico with 34 pledged delegates, Montana with 21, South Dakota with 20, and North Dakota with 18. A week later, D. C. Votes with 20 pledged delegates, to end the season.
The total number of the Real Super Tuesday pledged delegates is 694 or 17%, or 1/6 of the total. Adding in D.C. Gives 714 pledged delegates left.
