Fellow Democrats,

As we near the State Convention, we feel it important to address the growing tensions that have begun to divide our party. As Texas Democrats we must stand together against this sort of divisiveness and remain a party united in inclusion. Fortunately, in Texas we do not have the potential squabble over national delegates. The Clinton and Sanders campaign have been awarded delegates proportional to 65.2 and 33.2 percent of the vote, respectively, each received on March 1 and those numbers will not change at the convention. It is this dynamic that will allow us to focus on electing Democrats at every level and strengthening our progressive message.

To our Hillary supporters new and old, we too will continue the fight for each vote. Senator Sanders and his campaign have done a great deal to grow our party. As the campaign enters the final phase of the primary we must work in a positive and energetic manner. Donald Trump must never be allowed to assume the Presidency and we must all come together to prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality.

To our Bernie brothers and sisters, this is not a call to take our foot off the gas—we will continue this campaign until each and every voter has the opportunity to have their voice heard. But we will do so in the spirit of compassion that has guided this campaign from day one. We will continue to grow the tent under which this party sits and push the progressive agenda that has defined our movement. We can never lose sight of the fact that the things that unite us are far greater than those that divide us.

At the end of the day, we are one Democratic Party, united in inclusion, acceptance and cooperation. A party that fights for working families, for women’s rights, for black life's, comprehensive immigration reform, and for equal protections for the LGBTQ community. The future is bright for Texas Democrats, but only if we take this opportunity to come together.

Let’s do this,

Garry Mauro, Fmr. Texas Land Commissioner
Texas Authorized Agent
Hillary for America

Jacob Limon
Texas State Director
Texas Authorized Agent
Bernie Sanders for President

After reading a number of impassioned defenses of why the Democratic presidential nomination should not be called next week on June 7th, I got curious. What’s the history here, since the superdelegates were added to the process? When a Democratic candidate hits the magic number of pledged delegates plus superdelegates, are they the nominee?

The answer: history says the first person to get to the magic number is the presumptive nominee, and says it unambiguously, even if the losers often disagree.

Here’s how it has gone since the superdelegates were added to the process.....

Summary

Anyway, I started this research 12 hours ago to answer a question for myself, so that as everyone on TV is spinning things this way and that on June 7th I have some context. What, if anything, have I learned?

First, most non-incumbent candidates have needed superdelegates to win, and the history of superdelegates has been that once a Democrat hits the magic number and becomes the nominee, superdelegates are more likely to flow to the nominee than from them.

Also, in the history of the superdelegates, they have always ended up supporting the decision of the pledged delegates, and their most important contribution has been to amplify leads of the pledged delegate winner so that they can be assured success on a first ballot, and avoid the sort of messy convention that harms a general campaign.

The major thing I’ve learned is that the press declares, and has always declared, the winner after they hit the magic number, and has done so in far more nebulous circumstances than this. Even in 1984, in which Hart won by a number of other metrics, in which the delegate count was the arbiter, and Mondale announced himself as the nominee, even with 38 percent of the popular vote to Hart’s 36 percent—even then, Hart may have claimed he still had a cunning plan, but no one begrudged Mondale the fact he was, for all intents and purposes, the nominee.

When you think about it, that simply has to happen. Things need to get done, and they need the nominee to do them. Except for Reagan in 1976, who chose a running mate after Gerald Ford was made the nominee, there aren’t a whole lot of non-nominee candidates going to the convention with their own vice president picked out. You get to do that because the numbers say you’re the nominee.

Meeting this number also allows the nominee to do the work of campaigning before the convention, establishing a message, building capacity on the ground, etc.

The press, for its part, has always understood this, from 1984 onward, and has named the nominee (or the “presumptive nominee”) the minute the candidate crosses the line with their combination of pledged and supers, and usually said something to the effect that they had “clinched” the nomination. They did that when Mondale had won far fewer states than Hart. They did that when Dukakis did not have 50 percent of the pledged delegates. They did that when Obama had not won the popular vote (yes, I know, Michigan—I hope we’re still not fighting this?).

Mr. Sanders’s irresponsibility is sadly unsurprising. He has stirred up populist energy over the past several months with anti-corporate scapegoating and extravagant claims about policy. He has indulged and encouraged hyperbolic feelings that the country is badly adrift, that most of the nation agrees with a left-wing agenda but is trapped in a corrupt system, and that nothing but a political revolution will do. He has attracted some big, passionate crowds. But as he has lagged in votes, he increasingly has questioned the legitimacy of the process and encouraged his supporters to feel disenfranchised. The result is a toxic mix of unreason, revolutionary fervor and perceived grievance.

What is particularly galling about the Sanders camp’s complaints of disenfranchisement is that Mr. Sanders has benefited or tried to benefit from a variety of sketchy quirks of the nominating process. He has claimed support for his cause in caucuses, which are quite exclusive, but he complains about closed primary elections, which are more inclusive. In Nevada, his supporters were trying to game the rules to get more delegates and got upset when they did not succeed. As veteran Nevada politics reporter Jon Ralston put it, “Despite their social media frothing and self-righteous screeds, the facts reveal that the Sanders folks disregarded rules, then when shown the truth, attacked organizers and party officials as tools of a conspiracy to defraud the senator of what was never rightfully his in the first place.”

Mr. Sanders denies reality when he tells supporters he still has a plausible pathway to the Democratic presidential nomination. But passion cannot trump reality. It also cannot excuse violence, threats and attempts at mob rule. It is past time for Mr. Sanders to be honest with his supporters, before they take the campaign’s irresponsible ethos to greater extremes and thereby help ensure the election of Donald Trump.

The idea that the popular vote totals are flawed because caucuses aren't included has been floating around for a while. The point of questioning the sum is obvious: To question the extent to which Democratic voters (and independents voting in Democratic contests, who usually favor Sanders) have preferred Clinton as the party's nominee.

This has been floating around so long, in fact, The Post's fact-checkers looked at this issue at the beginning of April. Did Clinton at that point actually lead by 2.5 million votes, as she claimed? No, she didn't.

She led by 2.4 million votes.

The Post's Glenn Kessler arrived at that figure by taking estimates of how many people came out to vote in caucus contests and applying the final vote margin to that population. This is admittedly imprecise, as King notes, since in some caucuses (like Iowa's) voter preferences can and do change. Kessler's total included Washington, despite King's insistence -- and in Washington, he figured that Sanders had the support of 167,201 voters to Clinton's 62,330. Despite that, still a 2.4 million advantage for Clinton.

It's worth noting that caucuses, for which it's harder to calculate vote totals, are usually in smaller states and/or have smaller turnout. King's concern about ensuring Alaska's huge Democratic voting base is included in the tally is answered by Kessler's math.

What's more, Kessler continued updating his tally as results came in. The most recent update was after the contests on April 27, at which point her wins in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and other Northeastern states had extended her lead to "just over 3 million votes" -- including his estimates for the caucuses. (By my tabulation of Kessler's numbers, it's 3.03 million.)

Since then, there have been five contests.

Indiana. Sanders won with 32,152 more votes.
Guam. Clinton won with 249 more votes.
West Virginia. Sanders won with 30,509 more votes.
Kentucky. Clinton won with 1,924 more votes (per the latest AP count).
Oregon. Sanders won with 69,007 more votes (per AP).

In total, then, Clinton's lead over Sanders in the popular vote is 2.9 million. The difference isn't because the total excludes Washington. It's because it includes more recent contests from the past 14 days.

That number will continue to change. There are only two big states left -- New Jersey and California -- both of which vote June 7. Clinton leads by a wide margin in New Jersey, where more than a million people turned out in 2008. She has a smaller lead in California, where about 5 million voted in the Democratic primary eight years ago. For Sanders to pass Clinton in the popular vote, he would need turnout like 2008 in California -- and to win by 57 points.