The trend the Clinton camp is worried about is this: Outside the Deep South, what voters in the Blue and Purple states are telling us so far is that they want Bernie Sanders on that November Ballot.
Here are the numbers: Of the 768 pledged (earned) delegates that Hillary has so far garnered, 438 of them are from those eight Deep South states. That leaves Hillary Clinton with 330 pledged delegates in the rest of the states that have voted to date (March 10).
Bernie Sanders' totals for pledged delegates to date are 553 total, of which 178 are from the eight Deep South states that Hillary won. That leaves Bernie Sanders with 375 pledged delegates earned in the Blue and Purple states.
That means that outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders has earned 45 more delegates than Hillary Clinton.
Because the rules for awarding of delegates is sometimes convoluted, a more accurate picture can be seen in the actual vote totals.
Overall, Hillary Clinton proclaims that she is out-voting Bernie Sanders by more than a million and a half votes nationally. And that's true. The actual vote differential, nationally, is 1,639,320 votes in Hillary's favor.
However, the picture changes when you realize that the vote differential in the Deep South states is 1,697,216. Look at those two numbers.
In other words, ALL of vote differential that Clinton proclaims over Sanders can be found in the Deep South states.
In fact, it's worse than that, for Clinton.
In those Blue/Purple states, Bernie Sanders is actually leading Hillary Clinton in raw vote numbers. Of the 4,314,700 votes cast outside the Deep South so far, Hillary Clinton won 2,217,108, while Bernie Sanders won 2,275,004.
So, nationally, Bernie Sanders has won 57,896 more actual votes than Hillary Clinton, outside the Deep South.
Bottom line, outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton in both pledged (earned) delegates, and in actual votes cast.
And it is only outside the Deep South that Democrats have a possibility of winning Electoral College votes that actually put a President in the White House.
One other thing that has the Clinton camp worried. That is the proclaimed devotion of the Sanders supporters, as well as their often-blogged distaste for Clinton.
Conventional wisdom is that Democrats will rally around the eventual nominee, regardless of how contentious the primaries might have been. Bernie's supporters will of course vote for Hillary if it is the choice between her and Trump or Cruz.
That, frankly, is not a safe assumption this year. And that is because of the very nature of Sanders supporters. His strengths are with the young, the independent thinkers, and the folks, young and old, who like Sanders' vision of a better, more caring and democratic America. None of these voters hold any allegiance to the Democratic Party. In fact, so many of them have joined the party solely to vote for Bernie Sanders and his vision.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
7
3
3
