Sanders’ ‘narrow path’ to victory gets even narrower
Bernie Sanders insists he has a “narrow path” to the nomination. But he and his aides refuse to say what it is.
A majority of the states and territories yet to vote rejected him in 2016. The national polls don’t offer much hope either — since Joe Biden defeated him in Arizona, Florida and Illinois on March 17, Sanders has trailed him by double-digits in every single national survey.
Days before the Wisconsin primary — the last major race on the presidential calendar for weeks — Whoopi Goldberg grilled Sanders on “The View,” pushing him to explain how he could still capture the nomination. He never spelled it out, instead arguing that “people in a democracy have a right to vote and have a right to vote for the agenda that they think can work for America, especially in this very, very difficult moment.”
Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, and senior adviser, Jeff Weaver, have likewise declined to answer questions from POLITICO about what his path looks like. While it’s not yet mathematically impossible for him to win, Sanders would need to amass more than 60 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination — a mark he’s only hit in two states this year, Nevada and his home state of Vermont.
His path is so narrow that some of Sanders’ senior aides have even advised him to consider dropping out, though not everyone in his inner circle feels the same way, according to people familiar with the situation. [Continue reading…]