After handily winning Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii on Saturday, Sanders is closing in on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and he says he has the “momentum” to seal the deal.
“We’ve won the last five out of six contests, all of them in landslide victories,” the Vermont senator said on CNN on Sunday, referring also to wins in Utah and Idaho last week.
Sanders gained 45 pledged delegates, bringing his current total to 975, inching closer to Clinton’s 1,243. And while the former secretary of State claims the support of 469 superdelegates, Sanders predicts that some of those party elites may change their mind if he keeps notching up such impressive wins.
“I think their people are going to say to them, look, why don’t you support the people of our state, vote Bernie Sanders,” Sanders said.
“I think when they begin to look at the reality,” Sanders said, pointing to repeated polling which has shown Sanders fairing better in match-ups against the Republican frontrunner, “a lot of these superdelegates may rethink their position for Secretary Clinton. A lot of them have not yet declared.”
“I think every vote is pivotal,” he continued. “We are now winning state after state with the Latino vote. We’re doing extraordinarily well with young people, and we do think we have a path toward victory.”
Looking forward to the April 5th contest in Wisconsin, where the candidate celebrated his victories on Saturday, “team Sanders is hopeful it can pull off an upset,” writes the Guardian‘s Lucia Graves.
“After all,” she continues, “Sanders won handily in the neighboring states of Michigan and Minnesota (the former came as a big surprise). And Wisconsin in particular, with its reputation as a sort of cradle for the labor movement, plays in no small measure to Sanders’ strengths.”
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