Can Bernie Sanders Really Win the Nomination?
An interesting piece from the New Yorker.
Sanders and his supporters point out, with quite a bit of justification, that the pundits and the betting markets have underestimated him all along. Before Saturday, who would have predicted that Sanders would best Clinton by sixty-four percentage points in Alaska, forty-six points in Washington, and forty points in Hawaii?
The Sanders campaign is an impressive phenomenon, and in states like New York and California it is still growing. While out shopping on Third Avenue in Brooklyn yesterday, I came across hundreds of Sanders supporters, almost all of them young, who had gathered to mark the opening of a local campaign office. The candidate was thousands of miles away in Wisconsin, and the results from the Western states were still hours away, but a large crowd of his followers had given up their Saturday mornings to express their support for him.
“Hillary Clinton and I agree that it is imperative that no Republican make it to the Oval Office,” Sanders said in Madison. Where the two candidates didn’t agree, he went on, was regarding who was best positioned to stop the Republicans. “One of our campaigns has created an enormous amount of enthusiasm and energy that will lead to a large voter turnout in November,” Sanders added. “That campaign is our campaign.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/can-bernie-sanders-really-win-the-nomination
= new reply since forum marked as read
the candidate that is 2.5 million votes ahead? 
I don't see people that way. I try to see others who I disagree with as flawed or lacking in perspective. Hate never makes any sense to me. So let's not make it about good and evil between Democrats. Let's leave that "Big Evil" category to RethugliCons mkay?
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So if you fear nothing, why would you vote for Hillary?
From what I see around me (I'd say I have even more Hillary friends than Bernie friends), it's all about fear with the Hill supporters. Fear of
1. Trump
2. Socialism (economic fears in general)
3. Sad to say, fear of The Radical Other (whether it's Muslims, Fundies, Latinos, BLM, Occupy, etc.--whatever they think might disrupt their fragile sense of order and rightful longing for peace). Yes, even Liberals are afraid of Change. That differentiates them from Progressives.
With Bernie people I get positives, hope and mega enthusiasm. That's my tribe.
So hell yeah I'm enthusiastic, overjoyed actually, honored even-- to support the incredibly brave individual who stood up at age 74 and is sockin' it to em.
Yeah, the "socialism" fear from intelligent, high info Democrats is really weird to me. I think it's just a convenient receptacle for a fear of economic disruption. Better that we have reform within the system, as it would be with Sanders--rather than continue what is not working. That is a disaster course. Kicking the can down the road is not going to be tolerated any more. The rise of Trump thing and the emergence of Bernie style populism indicates that much.
Who you gonna believe Gallup or your lying eyes? This is really desperate. Everyone knows Bernie's supporters are the most enthusiastic. It's not even a contest. Don't embarrass yourself posting such utter nonsense.
This poll was posted yesterday in a couple of threads and even a grade school child has enough gray matter to question it's validity. It really is embarrassing that you actually think a poll by Gallup would change reality. Come on, no one needs a poll to know which side has the most enthusiasm. Seriously? 
and a lot of "oh well, I guess I have to vote for Hillary." So if it's that bad now, I don't think it's going to improve.
The wind is at Bernie's back seems to me. That's where I see real excitement.
But this reply is anecdotal and you have percentages. So 
we'll see....
And I thought only Republicans practiced medicine without a license.
Oh my. 
If you like Nate Silver (and must Hillarians do), his state-by-state analysis suggests that Sanders is achieving about 92% of where he should be in the delegate count to be on track for a win.
The climb from 92% to 100% may sound like a steep climb, but it is actually not that difficult of a pathway for Sanders.
Silver's projection sets targets based on the assumption that the race is tied and has been tied from the beginning and will be tied through to the end (i.e., his projection sets targets assuming a static race).
In February, Sanders was only hitting 81% of his target.
In the first half of March, Sanders improved to 84% and then 86% and then 88% of his target.
In the second half of March, Sanders improved to 89% and now 92% of the target.
This steady improvement has been the result of the fact that Sanders is not just meeting his targets to win in recent states; he surpassed his most recent targets to win in Democrats Abroad, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington.
Here is why:
That's a chart of all the live cell phone plus landline national polling of likely voters in 2016.
Silver's "targets" assume a static race, BUT THE RACE ISN'T STATIC. Hillary's lead is steadily falling from 15% to 5% in 2016 (and if you consider that her biggest leads are in states that have already voted but which are nevertheless included in the nationwide polling, she is likely no longer leading in the part of America that has not voted yet). The fact that Sanders started the race hitting about 81% of his targets and is now exceeding his targets by so much so that he has improved his overall performance from 81% of his goal to 92% of his target shows that Sanders' performance is improving dramatically.
In terms of where Sanders "should be" in the pledged delegate race to remain on target to win, he's only 92 pledged delegates short of where he ought to be in order to be on track for a win.
Hillarians like to pretend that she's crushing (because she did crush in the Bible Belt and she's been coasting down from that delegate lead since then) but she's only 92 pledged delegates ahead of where she would be if she were barely on track to squeak out a coin-toss-close win.
The reason why Sanders is only 92 delegates short of his goal despite the fact Hillary is about 230 pledged delegates ahead of Sanders is that Hillary's best states were front-loaded onto the primary calendar and Sanders best states were back-loaded and he's only just started dipping into the progressive pro-Sanders part of the primary calendar.
As the national race tips more and more in favor of Sanders (as the graph shows), it will become easier and easier for Sanders to exceed his goals in more and more states and get to 100% of his total pledge delegate target by the end of the race. Sanders needs just over 56% of the remaining delegates to head into the convention with a pledged delegate lead.
Keep in mind, Hillary is still the favorite, and Sanders is still the long-shot underdog, but the race remains very winnable.
to be pulling for Bernie. Whatever state you're in. 
K&R
