Sunday, April 10, 2016

Sanders Wins Wyoming - But Splits Delegates With Clinton

The state of Wyoming held its Democratic caucus on Saturday. It was widely expected that Bernie Sanders would win it by a very large margin -- because it is a caucus and because he has done that in other western caucuses (like Utah and Idaho).

But that didn't happen. Sanders did win the Wyoming caucus (which had about 8500 voters participate), but the margin was disappointing (55.7% to 44.3%). And even more disappointing is the fact that he didn't cut into Hillary Clinton's large lead in delegates.

The two candidates split the 14 delegates up for grabs, and each received 7 delegates. Add in the four super delegates, and Hillary Clinton will have 11 Wyoming delegates to 7 for Bernie Sanders. That's not good for Sanders. With the number of outstanding states dwindling, he needs to start cutting into Clinton's delegate lead significantly. Splitting delegates just gets Clinton closer to the nomination.

Here is how the delegate race stands currently (according to Bloomberg Politics):

PRIMARY/CAUCUS DELEGATES
Clinton...............1287
Sanders...............1037
difference...............250

TOTAL DELEGATES
Clinton...............1756
Sanders...............1068
difference...............688

It takes 2383 delegates to win the nomination, and there are still 1941 delegates to be awarded. Hillary Clinton will need 627 (32.3%) of those delegates to win the nomination. Bernie Sanders would need 1315 (67.7%) of those delegates to win the nomination.

3 comments:

  1. Ted, check your figures -- or mine/MSN. According to MSN, the total Democratic vote in Wyoming was only 280 of which Sanders got 156, Clinton 124, and the triumphantly victorious total was all of Thirty two votes.
    '
    I'd expected Alaska would provide the ultimate in "renaming a molehill and selling condos on it," but it was a gigantic runaway -- by comparison. 539 real, countable votes were registered, and Bernie was the BIIIIIG winner, getting 440 voters behind him.
    '

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  2. I realize it's sort of confusing, but on MSNBC the head of the Wyoming Democratic Party said 8500 voters participated. The 156 to 124 figures reported were delegates selected to go on to the next level. The media should have done a better job of explaining that.

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    Replies
    1. There were about 1300 votes cast in Cheyenne alone (where Clinton won by about 30 votes).

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