The race for the Democratic nomination is starting to heat up. Senator Bernie Sanders is fighting an uphill battle in terms of the delegate count. Hillary Clinton currently has 1,280 delegates (not counting superdelegates) while Sanders sits at 1,030. While Clinton has a large lead, Bernie has won six of the last seven states and is starting to gain momentum.
The next major primary is New York, which holds its election on April 19 and has a whopping 291 delegates at stake. It is also a state that both candidates have ties to. Clinton represented it in the United States Senate, and Sanders was born in Brooklyn.
A win in New York for Hillary could all but end Bernie's momentum, but a win for him would put even more wind behind his back. The two have been trading shots over voting records, and he recently said Hillary Clinton is "unqualified" to be President because of her ties to Wall Street. You can sense the tension as both candidates realize how crucial the New York Primary really is.
In order to win the nomination, it isn't enough for Bernie Sanders to just win states. If he wants to catch up, he needs to win by large margins, which recently, he has been doing. If he does win New York, it will likely be a pretty close race, but he could make up for that with the momentum a win would provide him. That momentum could lead him to big wins in the states that follow New York such as Maryland and Pennsylvania. After Sanders' disappointing day on March 15, he needed to win 58 percent of the delegates from that point on and, so far, he has done that.
To add to the drama, there will now be a debate on Thursday night between the two. The debate will take place in New York, and CNN will host. You can expect both candidates to be far more aggressive than they have been thus far. Clinton will likely attack Sanders on guns, and he will likely continue to hit her on her ties to Wall Street and Iraq War vote. Hillary has been increasingly trying to shift her attention to the general election, but she now seems set on finishing off Bernie Sanders who is still very confident in his chances to win the nomination.
The debate and the following primary will be one of the most crucial moments in this campaign so far. A win in New York for either candidate would spell trouble for the other, and when five states head to the polls on April 26, we will probably have a very clear idea of who the nominee will be.
