After watching Sunday's Democratic debate I came away inspired to take a look into what it would take for Bernie Sanders to win the democratic nomination. In doing so I come away with a sad picture of a party likely to commit election theft by the use of super delegates.
In the coming months we will be voting for a candidate. As polls have been showing, Bernie Sanders is quickly gaining support, while Hillary, the presumed favorite, is losing her lead and, in some polls, already behind. It really depends on who you ask, but there is definitely support for Bernie out there. Is it enough to defeat Hillary in the democratic party is the real question that needs to be addressed.
The Democratic party has a built-in system to eliminate popular candidates with the populace but not as favorable to party leaders by the way of Super Delegates. Super Delegates carry just about 20% of the voting power in the nomination of a Democratic presidential candidate. These Super Delegates do not have to answer to a voting public. They do not have to follow what the people have voted and they can make a choice solely on their personal discretion or relationship with the candidates.
In a tight race, which this one will surely be, it is very likely that Bernie could win the electorate primary pledges but he could lose the nomination by way of his peers. There are 4047 total pledges to be made in the party, 794 by the super delegates. As far as the remaining pledges go they are calculated by the percentage of votes in the primary election of each state. I'll use my home state of PA as an example of how the party could seal the election fate without the approval of the people.
PA has a total of 210 pledges, 189 are designated by the percentage of the vote that a candidate receives. There are three candidates, one of which is very far behind and likely to be a non factor. It is possible that the votes come in around 54% Bernie, 45% clinton, 1% O'malley.
That is a pretty wide margin of win for all intensive popular vote purpose. That would be 102 pledges for bernie, 87 for clinton. What the Super Delegates vote can clearly sway the victory. Deep party favors will be running thick in this race and if 18 of the 21 were to go Clinton, because she owes them favors or banks buy them or someone else buys them, Bernie is out despite the popular vote. As the race is tighter it would take less and less Super delegate votes to turn the tides.
Bernie is very likely to win a good chunk of states. I doubt it will be a landslide in any one and I believe Hillary is likely to win a few as well. I really hope that the DNC does not pull a Gore vs Bush on its own people, but I wouldn't put it past them.
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