Hillary's Winning the 13-State-Bible-Belt. Sanders is Still Winning the 37-State-Not-The-Bible-Belt! [View all]

[Attorney in Texas]

This nomination race is basically where you would expect it to be if you were looking for Sanders to win a come-from-behind upset over Hillary, the DNC chosen establishment Goliath who is running to keep the status quo in place.

There are several key points to keep in mind.

1. First, if you were thinking that Sanders was the favorite, and not the underdog, and this would be an easy waltz to the nomination, that was never a realistic expectation. If you thought that a Jewish progressive candidate from New York via Vermont was going to win in the Bible Belt over the centrist former first lady of Arkansas, that was also never going to happen. But keep in mind, Dixie is 13 states and the rest of America is 37 states; I'd rather be winning in the 37 state region than in the 13 state region.

2. Second, leave aside the Bible Belt for a moment, and look at how well "underdog" Sanders is doing in the rest of the nation:

State.....Hillary Delegates.....Sanders Delegates

IA.....................23....................21
NH....................9.....................15
NV....................19....................15
CO....................28....................38
MA....................46....................45
MN....................29....................46
OK....................17....................21
VT.....................0.....................16
NE....................10....................14
KS....................10....................23
ME....................7.....................15
MI.....................60....................67
IL......................68....................67
MO....................32....................32
OH....................76....................57

Total................434...................492 out of 926

Considering the 15 contests outside of the Bible Belt, Missouri was a tie and Sanders won the most pledged delegates in 9 out of 15 states! Sanders won most of these states convincingly, and lifted the voters to achieve record turnout in most of these wins.

Hillary only won a majority of pledged delegates in only 5 out of these 15 states, and her wins in Iowa and Massachusetts and Illinois were by incredibly narrow margins (by only one delegate in Massachusetts and Illinois, and by 2 in Iowa).

Sanders has won over 53% of these delegates!

If the West Coast states were front-loaded in the nomination calendar instead of the Bible Belt, the establishment politicians at the DNC would already be updating their resumes and the M$M would be pulling its hair out.

3. Third, the goal is to amass a majority of pledged delegates going onto the convention. Do not fall for the nonsense about super-delegates who do not vote until the convention and who historically flip to back whichever candidate is leading in the voter-assigned pledged delegate count and do not but into Hillary's campaign's misleading posts about the "popular vote" which is not a real count of the popular vote (just ask what was the popular vote in Iowa, for example, and why Hillary and her allies in Iowa are opposing any release of those figures).

There are 4050 pledged delegates to be allocated, and 2108 remain to be assigned by the voters in the upcoming contests. That means we are less than halfway through the process. For Sanders to achieve 2026 pledged delegates (a majority) he needs 1215 (about 57%). To put that in context, Sanders meets this target if he does about as well as he did in Nebraska, and he meets this target even if he does less well than he did in Kansas, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Sanders does not even have to do as well in the remaining part of the race as Hillary did in the first part, and he can still win.

With these goals in mind, we need to focus like lasers on the next 9 contests:

Democrats Abroad (we are well ahead)
Idaho (we are ahead in the most recent poll)
Utah (we have been ahead in earlier polling and Sanders is way ahead in the betting markets)
Arizona (this is a close race to watch; if we get the turnout up, we probably win)
Alaska (we are ahead in the most recent polling)
Hawaii (I'm not aware of any polling, but Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has our back and I like our chances)
Washington (I'm not aware of recent polling, but word on the ground is that we are ahead)
Wisconsin (we are ahead in the most recent polling)
Wyoming (I'm not aware of recent polling, but word on the ground is that we are ahead)

Sanders is already winning the Not-The-Bible-Belt primary 9 wins to 5, and after then next 9 contests, Sanders could easily be ahead 18 to 5!

We have passed through the part of the calendar rigged to favor the type of centrist candidates who will perform best in the Bible Belt, and the best half (more than half, really) remains to be contested. Sanders has taken Hillary's best punch, and he's still standing!

Keep donating! Keep phone banking! Keep the hope burning!