WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders is staying in the Democratic presidential race even though he has little chance of overtaking Hillary Clinton in the all-important delegate count, and new data from the Illinois primary provides a vivid example of how the arcane system works — and why Sanders has reason not to quit.
“We still have a path to the nomination, and our plan is to win the pledged delegates in this primary,” Sanders said in a fund-raising appeal after Clinton bested him by 10 percentage points in New York last Tuesday. “Next week, five states vote, and there are a lot of delegates up for grabs.”
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Sanders, his campaign manager Jeff Weaver and top strategist Tad Devine all insisted in interviews after New York that that path, while increasingly narrow, was realistic.
We’ll know more come Tuesday, when five Eastern states vote: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.
This chaotic campaign season, in which outsiders Sanders and Republican front-runner Donald Trump have gained enormous followings, has thrown a spotlight on the presidential nominating system.
Many voters are realizing for the first time that primary and caucus votes are just one step of many and that the state and national parties have enormous influence in the process. Delegates at the GOP and Democratic nominating conventions this summer decide the nominees, not caucus and primary voters, whose voices, at best, are heard indirectly.
The system is complicated. It is not, as Trump likes to say, rigged. But it is tilted toward insiders who study the rules with the zest of a Talmudic scholar.
BREAKING IT DOWN
Let’s break down Illinois, which can be done with precision now that the Illinois State Board of Elections has finalized the results of the March 15 primary.
Illinois Democrats will send 182 delegates to the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia in July.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. AP photo
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won 52 of the 102 elected delegate slots in Illinois’ March primary, to Bernie Sanders’ 50, according to the recently released final vote count. AP photo
“We still have a path to the nomination, and our plan is to win the pledged delegates in this primary,” Sanders said in a fund-raising appeal after Clinton bested him by 10 percentage points in New York last Tuesday. “Next week, five states vote, and there are a lot of delegates up for grabs.”
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Sanders, his campaign manager Jeff Weaver and top strategist Tad Devine all insisted in interviews after New York that that path, while increasingly narrow, was realistic.
We’ll know more come Tuesday, when five Eastern states vote: Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware.
This chaotic campaign season, in which outsiders Sanders and Republican front-runner Donald Trump have gained enormous followings, has thrown a spotlight on the presidential nominating system.
Many voters are realizing for the first time that primary and caucus votes are just one step of many and that the state and national parties have enormous influence in the process. Delegates at the GOP and Democratic nominating conventions this summer decide the nominees, not caucus and primary voters, whose voices, at best, are heard indirectly.
The system is complicated. It is not, as Trump likes to say, rigged. But it is tilted toward insiders who study the rules with the zest of a Talmudic scholar.
BREAKING IT DOWN
Let’s break down Illinois, which can be done with precision now that the Illinois State Board of Elections has finalized the results of the March 15 primary.
Illinois Democrats will send 182 delegates to the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia in July.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. AP photo
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won 52 of the 102 elected delegate slots in Illinois’ March primary, to Bernie Sanders’ 50, according to the recently released final vote count. AP photo
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