“I have gotten 2.6 million more votes than Bernie Sanders”, Clinton told supporters crowded into a union hall in Everett, Washington, this week.
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As people gathered inside the school cafeteria waiting to vote, someone announced “Bernie won Alaska”, prompting cheers from around the room.
“Sanders, with his enthusiastic young supporters, has had an advantage in caucus states”, NPR’s Tamara Keith tells our Newscast team.
In an interview, Sanders cast his performance as part of a Western comeback, saying he expects to close the delegate gap with Clinton as the contest moves to the more liberal northeastern states, including her home state of NY. The state’s Democrats had him well ahead of Hillary Clinton in their posted results at 7:49 p.m.at about 72 percent to Clinton’s 28 percent with 71 percent of the precincts reporting.
One voter who showed up an hour early is near the end of the line, and says he’s disappointed with the level of disorganization.
Clintons, including the former president Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsie Clinton, spend quite a bit of time in Washington. At stake were 101 delegates. “We are going to do both of those things”, Mr. Sanders declared.
He said the momentum building behind his campaign comes from big crowds at rallies, from overwhelming victories, from record turnouts at caucuses and primaries, from a grassroots campaign taking on the political establishment and from more than two million supporters who donated less than $30 apiece on average.
Hawaii has 24 of delegates and nobody seemed to be making very firm projections there either.
According to an Associated Press analysis, Sanders would need to get more than 67 percent of the total remaining delegates won in the primaries and uncommitted superdelegates to take the nomination.
Sanders, who’s found some success in the industrial Midwest, wants to leverage his working-class support and fiery arguments against free trade into an April 5 victory in delegate-rich Wisconsin.
Clinton started the day with a substantial lead in pledged delegates: 1,223 for Clinton to 920 for Sanders.
Going into Saturday, Clinton had already amassed 1,711 delegates, including super-delegates who are unelected by voters, compared to 952 for Sanders, according to a CNN count. Among pledged delegates, Hillary leads Bernie by fewer than 300 (1234-956).
At polling places across the islands Democrats will choose between the two leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
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Clinton did not hold a public event after the Alaska and Washington results were announced.
