Sanders looks to Badger State
Vermont senator holds a narrow lead, and the state’s makeup may help give him a boost
He aims for win, but it may not be game changer.
For Hillary Clinton, a loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday would be another reminder that Bernie Sanders isn’t going anywhere.
Recent polls show Sanders with a narrow lead in the Badger State. While a win there by the Vermont senator wouldn’t significantly change Clinton’s sizable delegate lead, it would give Sanders enough of a lift to continue his uphill battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Clinton comes into the race having lost five of the last six contests, and last month she lost to Sanders in neighboring Michigan, undercutting her campaign’s argument that the Vermont senator is a regional candidate whose appeal is limited mainly to young, white college students.
Still, cutting into Clinton’s overall delegate lead remains a formidable challenge for Sanders.
“There’s optics, and then there’s math,” said David Wasserman, an elections analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report in Washington.
Clinton has a lead of more than 250 pledged delegates, and her lead is even greater when superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders who are free to support anyone irrespective of primary results — are factored in. Since Wisconsin, like all states in the Democratic race, awards delegates proportionally, Sanders won’t be able to reduce her overall delegate lead by much unless he’s able to win by a large margin.
Clinton had hoped to box Sanders out of the race last month in Michigan, where he pulled off a stunning upset. Since then, she’s tried look more toward her potential GOP opponents in the fall — only to be drawn back into battling with Sanders.
In recent campaign appearances and in an ABC News interview on Monday, Clinton is emphasizing her loyalty to the Democratic Party, contrasting herself with Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist who has served in Congress as an independent.
“I am committed to electing Democrats,” Clinton said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “I’m committed to raising money. I’m already helping to fund Democratic campaigns, because at the end of the day, a president can do a lot, and I have a very robust agenda with big goals for our country,” she said.
Of Sanders, she said, “There’s no indication there’s any interest there.”
Sanders pointed to recent polls showing he is better able to defeat Republican front-runner Donald Trump in November.
The RealClearPolitics polling average shows he leads Trump by 5 more percentage points than Clinton does.
“We have a path to victory,” Sanders said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Sanders’ campaign also continues to be a fundraising juggernaut, and he outspent Clinton in television advertising in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is favorable to Sanders for a number of reasons. It has an overwhelmingly white electorate and is home to a number of universities, including in Madison.
Unlike states such as New York, its primary also is open to independent voters, who have overwhelmingly backed Sanders, including in New Hampshire where he won by a landslide. Clinton lost Wisconsin by 17 points in 2008, and her campaign already is downplaying a potential loss by casting the state as the heart of the type of progressive activism that Sanders represents.
With Sanders showing momentum, tensions are flaring between the two campaigns, including over scheduling a debate before New York’s primary on April 19. Late Monday, CNN reported that Sanders and Clinton had agreed to debate in Brooklyn on April 14, which CNN and NY1 will host.