Sanders’ Dream
With the AP count that Clinton now has just the right number of delegates to win the nomination, or 2383. She must have gained the needed 28 superdelegates to add to her 548 to get 576 delegates. That means that the number of free Superdelegates has been reduced from 120 to 92. Sanders has 1,562 delegates, unless some defected. He still needs 821 delegates to reach 2,383 or Clinton’s amount.
Another way to look at it is to start with the pledged delegates only. Clinton has 1,807, and Sanders has 1,516. The difference is 291. Sanders can make up part of this on June 7 and 14 from the 714 pledged delegates available then. Then he has to get the rest from the 714 Superdelegates and a super sales campaign. If he doesn’t close on the pledged delegates, he needs to get 291/714 superdelegates, or 41% of them. Clinton now has 576 or 81%. Sanders only has 46 or 6.4%. With only 92 uncommitted Superdelegates, if Sanders adds all of these to his, giving 138, he is still short 292 – 138 = 154 that he must convert from Clinton’s 576, or 27% of hers. In the Democrats’ proportional primaries, it is hard to gain delegates if the votes are close.
