re: #232 lawhawk

The 1223 and 574 includes superdelegates. The count in the graphic above is accurate as far as it goes - it doesn’t include the superdelegates.

Bernie’s ability to stay in the race is dependent on people thinking he’s got more of a chance than he does. Even his big MI win was more than offset by a blowout loss in MS, which resulted in a net loss to Hillary on the day.

Pyrrhic victories.

I cleaned up my math before. At the start of Tuesday, Bernie Sanders needed to win 7% more delegates than Hillary Clinton in every state the rest of the way on average to be able to get to half of the pledged delegates (and force the superdelegates to reexamine their choices). After his historic, astonishing and in fact pretty impressive win in Michigan, he now needs to win… only 8% more delegates. Which is to say, the math got worse for him substantially, thanks largely to Mississippi.

Bernie’s best shot is to have a solid net positive night on Tuesday, and translate that into momentum. He’s behind about 220 delegates. To make that up with ramping momentum, he might be viable if he wins by +40 on Tuesday, +80 for the primaries running through the end of April, and +120 for the May/June primaries (which would pretty much translate into blowout wins in California and New Jersey). April & May are way more favorable to Bernie than March has been, but if he doesn’t start turning the momentum around next Tuesday, any possible path forward for him looks increasingly like Wonderland.

And Bernie needs for all of the midwest’s polling to be as wrong as Michigan’s was. Current polling for the 15th: OH (-17), IL (-26), FL (-32), NC (-14). Missouri may be his best state (it would share a lot of characteristics of both Michigan and Kansas), but is oddly enough effectively unpolled, especially weird for such a populous state.