Current projections indicate that Sanders will win with a little more than 56 percent of the vote, per CNN. Losing the state would be blow to morale for either campaign, as Clinton represented NY in the Senate and Sanders was born and raised in Brooklyn.
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Clinton won the Arizona primary on March 22, but Sanders then beat Clinton in Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington state and Wisconsin. Many of his best performances have been in states that hold caucuses rather than primaries, in part because the former typically highlight a higher level of engagement by progressive activists. While these are huge victories, the biggest indication of how the election will go will happen later this month.
Sanders’s wife interrupted his remarks at a campaign rally in New York Saturday with news of his latest victory. “Democrats are going to have a clear choice at our convention and we intend to win”.
NY has 291 delegates, the most of any state on the calendar so far. Sanders likely picked up seven of the state’s 14 delegates, while Clinton got six.
A supporter of free tuition at state universities, Sanders has attracted much of the young voters’ support, but he is faring poorly with rival Hillary Clinton among African Americans in particular ahead of the crucial NY primary on April 19. That gives her a total of 11 delegates from Wyoming to 7 for Sanders.
After suffering through a string of recent defeats, Clinton appears poised to recapture her momentum in NY and Pennsylvania where she leads Sanders by 16 and 11 percentage points, respectively, in the Fox News polling.
Sanders has racked up eight wins in the last nine contests and was joined on stage by singer and civil rights icon Harry Belafonte and Erica Snipes, the daughter of Eric Garner.
Without winning 60 percent of the vote in the NY primary, securing him 146 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 101, and locking up the remaining uncommitted superdelegates, Sanders will leave the Empire State with fewer convention votes in his pocket than Clinton, primary victory or not.
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When superdelegates – party officials who can back any candidate – are factored in, Clinton has amassed an even more daunting lead: 1,755 delegates to Sanders’ 1,068. A candidate must win 2,383 delegates to earn party’s nomination for forthcoming presidential polls.
