Sanders won two state caucuses today, but Hillary’s blowout in Louisiana means she has widened the gap between them even further. As things stand (minor shifts are still possible), 538 says Clinton has expanded her delegate lead by 11 delegates, and Sanders has fallen further behind in where he needs to be to be on track for the nomination:
fivethirtyeight.com/...
Sanders won Kansas and Nebraska. That’s the good news for him. The bad news is he’s even further from the nomination than he was before the day started: He lost Louisiana, and, in doing so, fell even further behind in the delegate hunt.
Let’s take a look at the math. Sanders won 23 delegates in Kansas to Clinton’s 10. He won — preliminarily — 14 delegates in Nebraska to Clinton’s 11. That’s a margin of 16 delegates.
In losing Louisiana, however, Sanders only claimed 12 delegates to Clinton’s 39. Combine the three states, and Clinton gained 11 delegates on Sanders.
Now you might be saying, but didn’t we expect Sanders to do poorly in Louisiana? Yes, that’s true. But according to our delegate targets, which takes that into account, Sanders is now 3 delegates further behind the pace he needs to win a majority of pledged delegate than he was at the beginning of the day. Considering he was already running 82 delegates behind his delegate goals, he needs to be exceeding his delegate targets.
Sanders is expected to win Maine tomorrow (another caucus in a state with an overwhelmingly homogenous population), but the latest polls suggest Clinton will win comfortably in Michigan on March 8 and have another blowout in Mississippi, similar to or greater than what happened today in Lousiana.
Congratulations to both candidates on their wins tonight, and congratulations to Hillary on her progress.
Sunday, Mar 6, 2016 · 3:48:19 PM +00:00 · CatM
As I noted last night, delegate totals would likely shift as more votes were tallied. Per 538's tracking page, Clinton expanded her delegate count by 9, not 11. She now leads 670 to 460; no candidate has overcome a lead that size in recent primary history. But a note of optimism for Sanders supporters: under their revised targets, Sanders is now only 15% behind where he needs to be to be on target for the nomination, which represents a 3% improvement. However, Hillary is 14% ahead of where she needs to be (a 29% gap between them), and the upcoming large delegate states on March 8 look very promising for her. Michigan polls all have her ahead by at least 17 points, and Mississippi will be a blowout.
Everyone expects Sanders to do very well today in Maine today; however, it has just 25 delegates. If he picks up 15, leaving her 10, he will meet his target. That is doable, based on Maine’s demographics and how well he does in caucuses. But Michigan has 130 delegates, and Sanders needs to win 67 to stay on target, whereas Clinton only needs 63. Thus, she could lose Michigan, which is highly unlikely, and would still be on target for the nomination. Mississippi has 36 delegates and Sanders needs to win 13 of them to stay on target. He is very unlikely to win that many.
Don't forget to watch tonight's debate in Flint! Let’s hope the moderators finally bring up climate change.