With the Republican race all but decided, Bernie Sanders kept the Democratic presidential primary interesting by beating Hillary Clinton in West Virginia.
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He cited a “scary” Quinnipiac University poll of swing states Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania showing tight races between Clinton and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump – races that Sanders performed slightly better in, though within the poll’s margin of error. A poll in April revealed that one in four Sanders supporters won’t support her, and a recent GQ article suggested that they would rather tank Clinton than vote against Trump.
Sanders has won 19 states to Clinton’s 23, but she is 94 percent of the way to winning the nomination with just 145 delegates short of the 2,383 required. “Anything he does to make it more hard for Hillary to win will undercut him, because it’ll make it look like it’s about him and not the country”, said Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee chairman.
Twenty-two delegates were elected based on the statewide vote, and the top 22 vote getters were all Trump delegates. “Mrs Clinton swept the five major primaries on Tuesday, she lost white men in all of them, and by double-digit margins in Missouri, North Carolina and OH, exit polls showed – a sharp turnabout from 2008”, the Times observed earlier this spring. The “strongly unfavorable” rating for Trump nationwide surpasses 50%, whereas Clinton’s is hovering just below 40%.
Bernie Sanders is urging his supporters to keep fighting despite the “narrow path” to the Democratic nomination.
But Sanders has a dilemma as he vows to fight for every last vote and delegate and soldier on to the Democratic convention in July.
Tuesday’s primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska were still important, even though the Republican presidential nomination has effectively already been decided.
According to CNN, nearly 40% of Democratic voters in West Virginia expressed a desire for a “less liberal” president than Barack Obama. And I think somewhere along the line there has to be a way to take a second look at some of the comments Mr. Trump made with regard to Sen. “And I think the same is true with me”.
In Louisville, Clinton hit Trump directly for opposing the federal minimum wage (although Trump recently said he might raise it) and pushing to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
About two-thirds of the state’s Republican primary voters and more than half of Democratic primary voters say trade with other countries mostly takes jobs from American workers.
Clinton’s campaign hopes suburban women, turned off by Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, could be a key source of support for her in the fall.
But she’s also trying to stop Sanders from gaining the psychological advantage of a series of wins this month.
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Democrats also voted on Tuesday in a presidential “beauty contest” in Nebraska, although the delegates from that state were all previously assigned during a March 5 caucus.
