Commentary
COLIN PERRY
News Editor
The dust is settling from the New York primary on April 19, where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat out Sen. Bernie Sanders in her adopted home-state 58-42 percent. New York, with 247 delegates up for grabs, was seen on both sides as one of the biggest contests for both candidates in the entire race for the Democratic Party nomination. It’s why the headlines coming out April 20 all asked the same question: Should Sanders even bother staying in the race?
Readers looking for the quick answer to that question need not go further: yes.
Far before he was on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Sanders was a high school athlete leading his track and field team at James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York. He and his classmates, according to The Washington Post, would run quarter mile repeats four days a week, running one quarter mile, then jogging 220 feet, then a quarter mile again, and so on. Among an impressive list of accomplishments for the young future senator is coming in third place in out of the entirety of New York City in one race. Of course, he didn’t always get the gold, but he kept running anyways.
The drive and determination which motivates a teenage kid to just run, and run, and run can be seen in the very existence of the Sanders campaign. Per RealClearPolitics, when he announced his candidacy in May 2015, he was polling on average at 5.6 percent, a mere fraction of Clinton’s 62.2 percent. Today, he polls at 46.3 to her 47.4. Not only has Sanders narrowed the gap, but he’s actually starting to pass her according to polls conducted by Bloomberg, The Atlantic and more.
But polls don’t always accurately depict reality; New York exit polls suggested a much closer race than the 16-point loss his campaign suffered. A better indication of support might be fundraising, because after all, people vote with their dollars, too.
The Sanders campaign has no reason to fear here either. Since January 2015, it’s raised just shy of $140 million, with the average contribution being (as Sanders says at his rallies time and time again) just $27. Every month so far in 2016, his campaign has raised more money than Clinton’s while beating its own record, every time. And there are no signs that suggest that trend is going to stop, as last month only 3 percent of his donors had maxed out on the legal limit of $2,700, according to the Campaign Finance Institute.
Still, for a presidential nomination, it all comes down to how many delegates a candidate picks up, and Sanders is losing that contest handily. According to the Associated Press, he currently trails Clinton to the tune of 1,207 to 1,444, or a gap of about 237. (I will be ignoring the superdelegate count, as all media outlets should, because at this point in the race they are a distraction.)
That’s a historically large distance to make up, one that can’t be talked down or countered easily. But one month ago, it was over 300 — and there’s more.
Across the five states that vote next Tuesday, 384 delegates are up for grabs. Indiana will yield a total of 83 May 3. California and New Jersey, which both vote June 7, have an astounding 601 delegates, just between them, to be awarded. In total, there are 1,400 more pledged delegates to be won for the rest of the primary, and anybody who wants to win outright needs to clinch 2,383.
It would be nonsense to suggest that Sanders has a shot at getting every single one of those delegates, or even winning every state from here on out. But it would be just as bad to suggest that he’s already lost, because that is simply not the case either. Many of these contests will be hard-fought and demographically tipped against him, but as we’ve seen in Iowa, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and even New York, there have been plenty of surprises for both sides.
But I think I owe it to many of my crestfallen colleagues to argue that the New York results shouldn’t really be a surprise. Sanders lost to Clinton in a state she represented in the Senate for eight years, a state where Barack Obama lost to her by an even bigger margin in 2008, a state with a closed primary that had its deadline for already-registered voters to change parties in October before Sanders had even debated his opponents on national television. Sixteen points isn’t sweet — but suddenly it doesn’t sound so bad.
If Sanders had won New York, it would have been an absolutely fatal moment for the Clinton campaign. As it stands in reality, Sanders is merely set back about 17 delegates from where he needs to be, according to FiveThirtyEight. That’s less than 4 percent of the delegate share of California.
None of this will be easy. But if you don’t want to take my word for it, maybe someone else can provide context for you.
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”
That’s none other than Clinton speaking to The Sioux Falls Argus Leader in May, 2008, defending her refusal to yield to Obama’s advantage. At least in one regard, it looks like she’s in to see history repeat itself again.
Love him or hate him, Sanders has an unparalleled consistency in his beliefs. Supporters are quick to note that he’s been championing the same causes and the same policies for 30 years, even as they failed to gain support until now. There are many different ways to win a race, and Sanders is no stranger to a difficult run. If he’s come 30 years, three more months is a walk in the park.