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Bernie Now 50–50 To Lock Democratic Nomination
Running 2nd? Nobody.
That’s after Sanders’ huge victory in the Nevada Caucus this weekend. Based on calculations by fivethirtyeight, which has been pretty accurate so far. (If anything they’ve overestimated Biden’s strength and underestimated Sanders’, although Biden also outperformed a bit in Nevada.)
2nd place being held now by “nobody”, means no candidate would go into the party’s national convention with enough delegates to win outright on the first ballot. Which probably means Bernie would lose. Which definitely means it would get really really ugly. (Something one of Bernie’s biggest boosters these days: Donald Trump, keeps reminding everybody in Tweets.)
Because Superdelegates (who are now called “automatic delegates”), would come in on the second and subsequent ballots. They are elected Democrats and party officials. And say what you want, but we can’t blame them for not supporting Bernie at that point, for no other reason than they’re Democrats and he’s pointedly and vocally not.
But it wouldn’t come to that if Sanders has an insurmountable pledged delegate lead by then. He doesn’t have to in order to win, but it would be difficult for him to win without it.
And that underscores the absurdity of the situation no matter whose side you’re on…
