Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin’s primary Tuesday, with Fox News and NBC News projecting the Vermont senator as the victor shortly after polls closed.
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The move means Sanders can compete against Hillary Clinton for Washington’s 20 pledged delegates and 26 superdelegates on June 14 – the last contest on the Democratic nominating calendar. If Mr Sanders can continue to win and start winning bigger, his campaign will increasingly consider the possibility that their candidate could go to the Democratic National Convention in July with a chance to grab the nomination. Sanders has 980 pledged delegates and 31 superdelegates.
Sanders was favored in the state, and polls had consistently given him a lead of between two to eight points.
The race now turns to NY, which hosts its primary on April 19.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton listens as she is introduced during a rally at Cohoes High School on Monday, April 4, 2016, in Cohoes, N.Y.
But Sanders has a more complicated task than Cruz in slowing his party’s front-runner, since Democratic delegates are doled out on a proportional basis rather than the winner-take-most formula used in Wisconsin by Republicans. Just a day earlier, Bill Clinton campaigned for his wife in Cheyenne, saying she’s the only candidate ready to be commander-in-chief on the first day. The website FiveThirtyEight rates each candidate’s percentage of delegates won against its projection of what is needed.
While wins for the Sanders and Cruz could bring them momentum, the ultimate impact is less clear. We’ll see after Wisconsin and NY how much of this contest is still up in the air.
But both men hope to win sufficient delegates to open the way to a contested convention.
Clinton congratulated Bernie Sanders on his win in Wisconsin via social media. But before that, Sanders is expected to win Wyoming’s April 9 caucus.
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In a fundraising email to supporters shortly after the results came in, Sanders claimed victory and looked ahead to future primaries and caucuses. So she is turning to local political organizations, unions and a vast statewide network of supportive elected officials to ward off what would be a humiliating defeat that could send the Democratic establishment into a panic even though she’d still possess a significant delegate lead. “If we can keep this up, we’re going to shock them all and win this nomination”, the email states. “When we are prepared to think big, when we are prepared to take on the greed and recklessness of Wall Street, when we stand together… we can create a government that represents all of us”.
