Share

Maine Democrats deliver rebuke to superdelegates

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and his supporters must not wreak havoc at the Democratic National Convention, warns Ed Rendell, who is in charge of putting together the July gathering in Philadelphia.

Advertisement

Yet Sen. Bernie Sanders is not conceding that New Jersey is Hillary Clinton territory, and there’s a few reasons why.

The US senator from Vermont needs roughly 1,000 delegates to clinch the nomination, while Clinton needs less than 200 to become the party’s nominee.

Counting superdelegates, Clinton has amassed a little more than 93 percent of the total necessary for the Democratic nomination, according to ABC News estimates.

Sanders now trails Hillary Clinton by roughly 300 pledged delegates and can no longer reach the nomination threshold using pledged delegates alone.

Maine Democrats have sent colleagues across the country a strong message that they are fed up with the party’s system of superdelegates.

Sanders’ refusal to bow out of the primary despite being almost mathematically eliminated is forcing Clinton to dedicate precious time and money on California’s June 7 primary, even though the state appears certain to stay ultra blue in November. Clinton won the Guam caucus.

However, the Maine Democratic Party has urged superdelegates to “agree voluntarily to vote in these proportions” for the 2016 election, and plans to petition the National Committee to abolish the superdelegate institute completely. “They’re wrong”, Sanders said in a phone interview with the Associated Press from New Albany, Indiana. Still, Trump assured the thousands gathered that “we’re going to be a unified party”.

Who: Pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton are Kenneth Michael Bruder, Valerie Brant Wilson and Sharon Marie Hayes.

Rather than let the subject rest, Trump told supporters Friday night in Eugene, Oregon, that he and Ryan had had a nice phone conversation three weeks ago but that, “all of a sudden, he wants to be cute”.

Later she took a shot at both her opponents, warning that Sanders’ call for free college tuition would also apply to billionaires. The latest MetroNews West Virginia poll, taken in February, gives him a 4-point edge over Clinton, 47 percent to 43 percent, while a Public Policy Polling survey released this week gave Sanders an 8-point lead, 45 percent to 37 percent, with almost 20 percent of Democratic voters still undecided.

Maine Democrats gathering for their state convention in Portland are going to consider a proposal to strip some of the power from superdelegates.

Advertisement

Responding to recent efforts by Donald Trump to try to reach out to Sanders supporters, Weaver says that Sanders himself “will work day and night to make sure that Donald Trump does not get elected president”.

Hillary Clinton speaks in Oakland