Sanders’s Path To The Nomination Is Steeper Than Ever
The Upshot’s cool model has Sanders eventually winning about 110 delegates in New York, which is well short of the 128 he’d need to keep up with his (increasingly difficult) path to a pledged delegate majority. Here’s what now we calculate as Sanders’s least-implausible path to 2,026 pledged delegates, assuming he earns 110 from New York tonight.
After tonight, Sanders would have to win California by almost 20 points, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey by around 10 points, to eventually claim the majority of pledged delegates. Even though Sanders has made up ground with Clinton over the course of the campaign, results like those would be quite a shock.
| STATE OR TERRITORY | NO. ELECTED DELEGATES | SANDERS’S PATH-TO-2026 PROJECTION | POPULAR VOTE MARGIN NEEDED TO REACH TARGET | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 475 | 280 | Sanders | +18 |
| Pennsylvania | 189 | 103 | Sanders | +9 |
| New Jersey | 126 | 69 | Sanders | +10 |
| Maryland | 95 | 44 | Clinton | +7 |
| Indiana | 83 | 49 | Sanders | +18 |
| Oregon | 61 | 46 | Sanders | +51 |
| Puerto Rico | 60 | 34 | Sanders | +13 |
| Connecticut | 55 | 32 | Sanders | +16 |
| Kentucky | 55 | 34 | Sanders | +24 |
| New Mexico | 34 | 19 | Sanders | +12 |
| West Virginia | 29 | 20 | Sanders | +38 |
| Rhode Island | 24 | 16 | Sanders | +33 |
| Delaware | 21 | 10 | Clinton | +5 |
| Montana | 21 | 16 | Sanders | +52 |
| South Dakota | 20 | 14 | Sanders | +40 |
| D.C. | 20 | 9 | Clinton | +10 |
| North Dakota | 18 | 14 | Sanders | +56 |
| Guam | 7 | 4 | Sanders | +14 |
| Virgin Islands | 7 | 4 | Sanders | +14 |