The hot dogs have been eaten, the subways have been ridden and the Brooklyn rallies are no more. The focus has moved elsewhere, the people have spoken and the New York primary is officially over. The Sanders campaign had won eight of the last nine contests prior to the New York primary and this did nothing less than give the Sanders campaign the "momentum rhetoric" they needed going into New York. After their multiple primary and caucus wins, the Sanders camp had claimed they expected to win New York if there was a large voter turnout. Sure, it was a rough couple of weeks for Clinton in terms of moral wins, but in terms of math... it was actually quite good.
On March 30th, 2016, Nate Silver released an article titled It's Really Hard To Get Bernie Sanders 988 More Delegates ,which listed Sander's revised targets in order to reach a majority of pledged delegates. Upon releasing these newly revised targets, Sanders went on to win the Wyoming caucus and Wisconsin primary. Regardless of these wins, Sanders failed to meet his newly revised targets which were as follows:
Sanders went on to win the Wisconsin primary by only +13.5 percentage points, whereas based on these newly revised targets, he needed to win by +16 percentage points. After the delegates were allocated, Sanders only received 48 delegates when he needed to win 50. The following Saturday, Sanders won the Wyoming caucus by +11.4 percentage points, whereas his revised target had him needing to win by +57 percentage points. By the end of the allocation, Sanders and Clinton both walked away with 7 pledged delegates. Based on the newly revised targets and the results of the two contests, Sanders was now 11 pledged delegates behind his revised delegate target. He was hoping to make up these 11 delegates with a major political upset by winning Clinton's home state of New York.
Regardless of Sanders claiming he would win the New York primary and "upset the Secretary", all of the polls suggested something different. Anyone living in reality knew Clinton would go on to win the Empire State. Clinton, as expected, won the New York primary by a healthy margin of +16 percentage points. This was not good news for the Sanders camp, which based on the above targets, needed to win by +4 percentage points in order to reach his New York target of 128 delegates, whereas he only won 108 delegates. As of today, after the Wyoming, Wisconsin and New York contests, Sanders must now make up 31 delegates in future states to reach the above targets in order to surpass Clinton in pledged delegates.
It is highly unlikely that Sanders will make these delegates up or reach the above targets in future states for that matter. The next contests coming up are the North Eastern states of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland, which hold their primaries on Tuesday, April 26th. Considering Secretary Clinton is doing very well in recent polls in the majority of these states, the above targets seem even more unlikely and out of reach for the Sanders campaign.
As of today, according to CNN, Secretary Clinton currently has an estimated delegate count of 1941 delegates and Senator Sanders has an estimated delegate count of 1240. In order to win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must receive 2383 delegates. As each contest passes, this is looking more and more promising for Secretary Clinton. Based on these estimated delegate counts, Secretary Clinton needs to win only around 26% of the remaining delegates, and Senator Sanders needs to win 71% of the remaining delegates.
I predict that Clinton will do very well this coming Tuesday and win the majority of contests as well as go on to win states such as Kentucky, New Mexico and California where she is continuing to lead in the polls. But hypothetically, even if Sanders won every remaining contest, he would need to win by "YUGE" margins in order to reach the above targets and make up the 31 delegates he did not receive in the last three contests in order to win the majority of pledged delegates.
Senator Sanders, I am sorry, but you have no hope of clinching the Democratic nomination. The New York primary has shown that the American people from all regions of the country are ready for Hillary. The revolution is with her, and the math is with her. On June the 7th, Hillary Clinton will be projected the presumptive Democratic nominee, for she will cross the threshold of 2383 delegates needed.
