Sanders can certainly win some of those states – Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota are all demographically predisposed to feel the Bern – but California and New Jersey are Clinton country.
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By staying in the race past the point of certain defeat, Sanders may also make a strategic point about how the Democratic Party can win going forward.
Calling herself a “Bernie or bust” supporter, like many others at Tuesday’s watch party, Tompkins said she was undecided of who she would vote for if Clinton were to clinch the Democratic nomination against presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Nebraska, which awards all its delegates to the primary victor, will send 36 to the convention.
She spent Tuesday campaigning in Kentucky, where she will face another close primary contest with Sanders in a week.
“We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business”, Mrs Clinton said, speaking about bringing renewable energy to the region. The other 5 delegates will be allocated as votes are tallied and finalized. Donald Trump’s last remaining rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, suspended their campaigns on 3 May and 4 May respectively. Sanders had 1,454 delegates, including 39 superdelegates.
The fundamentals: Still, Clinton is firmly on track to secure the 2,383 delegates needed to win the Democratic nod.
Among those voting in West Virginia’s Democratic primary, about a third said they would support Trump over either Clinton or Sanders in November. Tuesday night in West Virginia they are nearly evenly divided in the exit poll results (Sanders 45 percent, Clinton 44 percent).
“This presidential election has about the highest stakes that we have seen in a really long time”, she said.
In a curious poll, 44 percent of Sanders voters said they would choose Republican Trump in the general election, compared with just 26 percent who chose Clinton and 27 percent who chose neither.
Sanders’ victory in West Virginia did not come as a surprise.
“We have now won primaries and caucuses in 19 states and let me be as clear as I can be – we are in this campaign to win the Democratic nomination”. Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, and Clinton is far ahead of Sanders in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Clinton now has 2,228 delegates, compared to Sanders with 1,454, according to an Associated Press delegate count.
Exit polls showed Sanders leading Clinton among voters who want a less liberal government than that of President Obama – a contradiction given that the Vermont senator has largely been running to Clinton’s left.
Sanders is the projected victor of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in West Virginia and is readying a small push on Kentucky’s airwaves ahead of the state’s May 17 primary, according to Federal Communications Commission filings.
More than half of voters in both West Virginia primaries say the economy is the top issue facing the country.
The Mountain State lets independent voters cast either a Republican or Democratic ballot.
More than 7 in 10 say they’re excited or optimistic about what he would do, and about 8 in 10 West Virginia Republicans say they would vote for Trump in a general election matchup against Clinton.
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Sanders is already campaigning hard in California, where he hopes there is still a slim chance to catch Clinton in pledged delegates and then apply moral pressure to persuade superdelegates – mostly party officials favouring her – to change their minds before the convention.
