The big story last week was Hillary Clinton had won New York big time. Exit polls showed that Clinton drew support from demographic groups that helped her in past races. She won 66 per cent of voters 45 and older, while Sanders was the favourite among younger voters, 18-44. Clinton also once again dominated among minority voters, winning 75 per cent of the African-American vote and 64 per cent of the Latino vote.
The view from many is that the New York vote has finished Sanders. He won’t pick up enough delegates to win the Democrat nomination.
Josh Vorhees in Slate says there are currently 1,474 pledged delegates still to be allocated which leaves Hillary with some more work to do to clear that higher bar. Clinton needs to win 65 percent of the outstanding pledged delegates to reach 2,383, and 41 percent to reach 2,027. Sanders needs to win 84 percent of the outstanding pledged delegates to reach 2,383, and 59 percent to reach 2,027. Hillary’s won roughly 55 percent of pledged delegates to date, making that 65 percent target a high bar, and that 41 percent target a relatively low one. (Bernie, meanwhile, would need a serious reversal of fortunes to approach even that 59 percent figure in the remaining contests.) Sanders is promising to take the fight the whole way to the convention, but—barring some catastrophic turn of events for his rival—the math won’t look much better for Bernie once he arrives in Philadelphia.
As former Obama advisor Dan Pfeiffer tweeted: To put it in basketball terms, Sanders is down 30 with 5 minutes to go in the 4th with no 3 point shot, no shot clock and not in the bonus
But is that right?
Writing in the Washington Post, Dan Balz says Clinton won New York but her image is under water.
“The damage to Clinton from her battle with Sanders is borne out in the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll. The longer this race has gone on, the more she has shown vulnerabilities. The top-line number that caught the eyes of so many analysts shows her now in a dead heat with Sanders nationally — ahead of him by just two percentage points, 50 to 48 percent,’’ Balz writes.
“Those numbers have no influence on the state-by-state results but offer a window into both the success of Sanders in generating enthusiasm and Clinton’s inability to capitalize on all her political advantages. “
Her negative ratings have been rising and now outweigh her positives by 24 points, according to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. That makes her seen no more favorably than Cruz is. Her only salvation is that Trump’s net negative is minus 41.
And that’s the issue here. Her terrible numbers for months have been masked because we have the one candidate in modern history who has worse numbers, and that’s Donald Trump.
That’s why the chairman of the Republican Committee Reince Priebussays the GOP is much more comfortable running against Clinton than against Sanders.
“Much more comfortable and I think everyone that has analysed this knows that Hillary Clinton is in the ditch. We don’t know how far in the ditch she’s going to go but she’s not doing well. She’s not even winning,” Priebus said. “She is not popular, unfortunately for her, she’s not likable.”
Part of the problem with Clinton’s victory was that 100,000 voters in Brooklyn simply vanished from the electoral roll. Extraordinary stuff for a place that says it’s not a third world democracy. It’s now being investigated.
At the same time, the Bernie Sanders campaign has raised $182 million, eclipsing Clinton. And extraordinarily, the money has come from individual donations, not corporations, with an average of around $27.
And according to the New York Times, Hillary Clinton has burned through tens of millions of dollars to counter Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in states that are unlikely to be general election battlegrounds, delaying any pivot to the general election and shrinking her potential financial advantage over the eventual Republican nominee. According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, Mrs. Clinton has spent at least $20 million on advertising in states like New York, Illinois and Massachusetts, money that could otherwise have been saved for the general election.
“He (Sanders) is making Hillary Clinton spend money that should be spent defeating the Republicans,” said John Morgan, a Florida trial lawyer who will host a Clinton fund-raiser at his Lake Mary home next week. “Bernie Sanders has the real possibility of being the modern-day Ralph Nader. All he’s doing now is hurting Hillary.”
And if Donald Trump emerges as the GOP candidate, the Democrat machine might have to ask itself some hard questions.
As Yogi Berra used to say, the game isn’t over till it’s over
