Live
Audio Only
The media has trumpeted Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s certain nomination, but the race is far from over. Her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, pledged to remain in the running, with, in the words of his campaign, “more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come.”
The next contests are in Idaho, Utah and Arizona, where sparse and old polling still shows Sanders doing well.
Idaho, a caucus – whose more involved voting process tends to favor Sanders – has a two-point lead for the senator from Vermon, according to a February poll and a massive 47-point lead, according to an online poll by ISideWith.com with thousands of voters.
The same pollster shows identical numbers for the self-proclaimed socialist in Utah, whose last poll in February had him winning over undecided voters and only 7 points behind.
ANALYSIS: Sanders Hoping 'Free Trade' Critique Spurs an Upset on Tuesday
Arizona’s large Latino population could help tip the state toward Sanders, as it did in neighboring Nevada. A new March poll gave Clinton 50 percent of the vote but 26 percent undecided.
Hillary’s lead mostly comes from southern states, but Bernie won nine of the other twelve states. Now, her popularity will be tested in the West. Many are caucuses, and many are high contributors to the Sanders campaign.
Much of Clinton's lead comes from superdelegates, who can still change their vote based on the primary results. In other words, if Sanders keeps scoring victories, he may sway a majority of superdelegates to vote for him.
If history says anything, the 2008 Democratic runoff could be a hint. Both candidates were near-tied in March, Barack Obama taking the midwest and Clinton the high-delegate states and superdelegates. Bill Clinton had even said that Obama would make the perfect vice president.
As more states had their say, though, Obama’s momentum won almost twice more superdelegates, despite losing the popular vote.
Newsletter
