Debunking this article: "5 Reasons the Clinton-Sanders Race Is Much, Much Closer Than You Think"

Much Closer?  Not really.  Not really at all.

From the article at the Huffington Post found HERE. 

As I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed last night, I saw many Bernie Sanders supporters sharing this article by Seth Abramson at the Huffington Post which presents five reasons that the Clinton-Sanders race is "much, much closer than you think." This article was giving quite a number of Sanders supporters quite a bit of hope.    

Unfortunately, at least some of those five reasons are quite spurious and just don't add up.  So let's take them one at a time, starting with Number 5.. Why am I starting at the end?  Because that one is based on numbers, delegate math, and it's easier (though not quicker) to rebut.

Here's number 5, and before you copy it and share it, remember that it doesn't add up: 

5. It's much earlier in the nominating process than news media coverage of the Democratic primaries would lead you to believe.

Right now Hillary has only 28.4% of the pledged delegates she needs (677 of 2,378) to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Twenty-eight states still have to vote, and nearly all of these rank among the worst twenty-eight states for Clinton from a demographic standpoint. Sanders, with 478 pledged delegates, is only 14% off his delegate target -- that is, where he'd need to be at the present moment if he were "on track" to win the Democratic nomination -- and can breathe a sigh of relief that all ten of the worst states for him demographically are behind him.

Well, that certainly is some number mumbo jumbo.  Let's take it apart one sentence at a time:  

Right now Hillary has only 28.4% of the pledged delegates she needs (677 of 2,378) to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

Hillary has 38%, not 28%, of the PLEDGED delegates she needs to get the nomination.  

First, all of my numbers are coming from Nate Silver's 538 website, particularly this article entitled "Who is on Track for the Nomination?"

The nominee, either Hillary (or Bernie), needs 2,383 (not 2378) delegates IN TOTAL to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but that total includes superdelegates.  Since we would hope that any Democratic candidate would be the choice of the majority of pledged delegates as well as superdelegates, let's just look at the numbers for pledged delegates; that is, those pledged based on the results of Democratic primaries or caucuses.  

There are 4051 pledged delegates altogether.  That means that a candidate needs 2,026 PLEDGED delegates to get a majority of PLEDGED delegates.  Right now, including the results of yesterday's caucuses in Northern Marianas, Hillary has 776 (not 677) pledged delegates.  That's 38.3% of  the number of pledged delegates that she needs to cement that nomination.  (10% more than the author at Huffington Post calculated.)  Bernie has 551 pledged delegates now.  That's 27.2% of the pledged delegates needed to get the nomination. Altogether, 1,327 pledged delegates (or about 33% of the eventual total of pledged delegates) have been apportioned as of late Saturday, March 12th. 

How many more delegates do the two candidates need?

So (again not counting superdelegates) let's see how many more delegates the two candidates would need to nab the nomination.

Twenty-eight states still have to vote, and nearly all of these rank among the worst twenty-eight states for Clinton from a demographic standpoint. 

The author at HuffPo is close when he mentions that there are 28 states still to choose delegates.  There are actually 29 more states as of now, Sunday, March 13th. There are also 3 territories plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia left to vote, with a total of 107 delegates in those territories yet to be pledged.  The territory of the Northern Marianas voted yesterday and will be sending 4 delegates for Hillary Clinton and 2 for Bernie Sanders. (Even on a Saturday when not much is happening, Bernie Sanders has fallen a bit farther behind.) That leaves a total of 2,724 pledged delegates yet to be determined.  (4,051 total pledged delegates minus 1,327 already pledged equals 2,724.)    

To repeat, 1,327 have already been pledged and chosen and 2,724 have yet to be pledged by primaries and caucuses.  Yes, there are about two delegates TO BE pledged for every one pledged delegate that has ALREADY been pledged.  Yep, there are a LOT of delegates still be apportioned.  But does this really mean that Bernie could realistically get enough of those remaining delegates to take this nomination from Hillary, even with supposedly pro-Bernie favorable demographics?

Again, we are not counting superdelegates.  How many more delegates (and voters) of those 2,724 yet to be pledged delegates would Bernie or Hillary need to clench the nomination?

Here's where we get into the percentages:

Bernie has 551 pledged delegates.  He needs 1,475 more pledged delegates.  Hillary has 776.  She needs 1,250 more pledged delegates  It doesn't seem like a big difference, but there are no winner-take-all primaries on the Democratic side.  He would need those "pro-Bernie favorable demographics" and a lot more to overtake her.  

Hillary needs 46% of pledged delegates to win by that proverbial fingernail.  (That's 1250 divided by 2724.) Bernie needs about 54% of outstanding yet-to-be-pledged delegates to win by a fingernail.  (That's 1475 divided by 2724.).  

That 54% may sound very doable to Bernie Sanders supporters.. but the reality is that, in national polls and in various state polls, there is really no path for Bernie to get that AVERAGE of an extra 8% of the pledged delegates. There is some evidence that Bernie did so well (and demolished the polls) in Michigan due to independents and cross-over voting.  But few of the remaining primaries are open primaries which allow people to easily choose their party as they walk into the voting place.

Even in Michigan, Bernie Sanders only won by about 1.5% with 52% of Michigan's pledged delegates.  That was not even enough to crack that important 54% window, especially while Hillary was winning Mississippi with 89% of Mississippi's pledged delegates.   (Yes, I know that there were over three times as many delegates at stake in Michigan as there were in Mississippi.)

The Ides of March
 

Almost 700 delegates are on tap to be apportioned and pledged for five states on Tuesday, March 15th.  (That means that, after March 15th, there will be about 2024 delegates yet to be pledged.)  Remember that Hillary leads in all the polls, though some of those races are close.  And we can't count on polls, of course, as we saw what happened in Michigan.

But if Hillary wins about half of the March 15th delegates, or about 350, she would still need only about 44% (about 900) of the remaining 2024.  If Bernie wins half of those March 15th delegates, or about 350, he would still need about 56% (about 1124) of the remaining 2024.  Not much difference other than Hillary would be even closer to the nomination. 

Let's take a step back and just look at the Tuesday March 15 primaries:  Could Bernie win 54% or more of the delegates in all of those states that show Hillary so far ahead in the polls?   Well, anything is possible.  People still have a few days to vote.  But that means, as he is now behind in every one of those five states, he would have to beat the average of the Tuesday polls by an AVERAGE of 26%.  Now, he beat the Michigan polls by about 22%, and that was considered astounding.  Nobody has beat the polls by that much. Well.. not really.  Clinton beat the Mississippi polls by 22%.  But what are the chances that Bernie would beat the five March 15th primaries by an AVERAGE of 26%?  I have no answer to that one.  

Sanders is really not that far behind?  Only 14% "off"?

Sanders, with 478 pledged delegates, is only 14% off his delegate target -- that is, where he'd need to be at the present moment if he were "on track" to win the Democratic nomination -- and can breathe a sigh of relief that all ten of the worst states for him demographically are behind him.

As we mentioned above, Sanders actually has 551 pledged delegates.  The author at HuffPost says that Bernie is "only" 14% OFF his targets as established by Nate Silver's 538 blog.  But he neglects to mention that Hillary is 13% ABOVE all of her targets according to the same 538 analysis!  As we have shown above, the 14% that Bernie is down is BIG.

Let's remember that, even though Bernie won Michigan, he won Michigan by a percent and a half.. about 18,000 votes in over 1.2 million cast.  And he got a lot of help from cross over voters and independents who were able to vote in Michigan's open primary.

Three More Months!

The Huffpost author finishes:  

To put things in perspective, we're still three months -- yes, a quarter of a year -- from the most important primary in the Democratic nominating season (California). In fact, June 7th is as Super a Tuesday as any other we've experienced so far, with six states going to the polls. Those six states account for more than 800 delegates in total; so more than a third of all the delegates one needs to win the Democratic nomination will be awarded three months from now.

The author AGAIN appears to be mixing pledged and unpledged delegates.  There are 694 PLEDGED delegates up for voting on June 7th.  The key difference between June 7th as a Super Tuesday and March 1st as a Super Tuesday is that (aside from the fact that there were about 900 pledged delegates up for grabs on the March 1st super Tuesday) 3357 delegates will have already been pledged by June 7th.

If Bernie Sanders is within 700 delegates of Hillary Clinton on June 7th, even if he wins ALL 700 Super June Tuesday delegates, Hillary will already have had enough pledged delegates by that time to win.  If the difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie is anything less than 500 delegates of Hillary Clinton on June 7th and if he wins at least 86% of the pledged delegates on June 7th, he could pull it out. 

A Slight Hope..

But I will leave the Bernie people with a slight hope:  There is a very narrow path to victory for Sanders on June 7th:  If the difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie is anything less than 300 delegates on June 7th AND if Hillary wins LESS than 200 delegates (about 28%) on Super June Tuesday, he could pull it out.  That would mean, of course, that he has matched Hillary delegate for delegate in all of the 22 primaries and caucuses still to be determined between now and June 7th.   

So Super June Tuesday will probably not be as super as the Huffpost author hopes that it will. 

A lot can happen in three months, a fact that seems impossible to dispute when you consider that, thus far, Americans have only been voting in primaries for five weeks. In five weeks, Sanders went from a curiosity sharing a stage with the likes of Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb to a legitimate contender for the Democratic nomination who's already won nine states. So yes, this thing is close -- very close.

Bernie was always farther along than Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb.  He's been an active Senator and he's been active on social media for a long time.  I've always admired his activity on social media and I had shared many of his memes over the past few years.. even though I saw that he played often played fast and loose with the facts and the numbers.  He also went this far with a lot of help from Republicans who would much rather face him than face Hillary Clinton.

And his supporters have helped him go this far by buying into the villainization of Hillary Clinton.  Funny, I remember Hillary Clinton as the "hippie chick" who might derail her Democratic moderate husband Bill's chances at the Presidency.  Now Bernie people try to portray her as as "corporate" and "evil" as Carly Fiorina.

Back to the numbers..

But, despite all of the playing with numbers by Bernie supporters, this thing is not close.  Not unless there is a major shift in the next two to three weeks... A major shift in which Bernie doesn't just pull even but actually pulls quite a bit ahead of Hillary in the next 5 to 10 primary states.

(As I was finalizing this, I just came across an article by Andrew Prokop at VOX which covers some of these same numbers and issues.  He provides a more detailed path to victory for Sanders here.)