The California Democratic primary is on June 7. If Bernie Sanders loses, he’ll trail Hillary Clinton by such a huge margin in both pledged and superdelegates that there will be virtually no way to make it up. But as Bernie made clear over the weekend, no, he is not going, pushing instead for probably the wildest Democratic convention any of us are likely to ever see.
The polls in California are incredibly close, and Sanders could very well take the state. But, as the New York Times notes, he also said he won’t drop out even if Clinton triumphs and reaches the 2,383 delegates she needs to secure the nomination. After winning the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, she is just 28 delegates short. According to the Associated Press, she has 547 superdelegates to Sanders’ 46.
But Sanders says he plans to lobby superdelegates who have already pledged Clinton to back him instead, and that he has the money to keep running until the DNC in July.
“It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night,” Sanders told reporters Saturday, per the AP. “Now I have heard reports that Secretary Clinton has said it’s all going to be over on Tuesday night. I have reports that the media, after the New Jersey results come in, are going to declare that it is all over. That simply is not accurate.”
It would be over, though. It would, if that happens, by any reasonable standards, be over.
Sanders has also been fighting with the DNC about the people he was allowed to appoint to the committee that writes the party platform. Sanders claimed last week that one of his picks, RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, was rejected because she was a representative of a labor union.
In an interview Sunday with Jake Tapper, the two of them sitting awkwardly on park benches, Sanders attacked Clinton for her support for fracking, the war in Iraq, her overall support for military intervention in other countries, and the Clinton foundation taking donations from foreign governments like Saudi Arabia. And he criticized the superdelegate system as a whole, saying it allowed Clinton to get crucial support before anyone else was even in the race: “It’s like an anointment.”
Meanwhile, as the Democrats struggle among themselves, a terrifying, orange-hued Jenga pile composed of medical waste continues to consolidate his right-wing support.
Sanders rallies Sunday in San Diego. Photo via AP