# Sanders saved by supers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [March 10, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545 "2016-03-10T15:21:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 9

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/161 "2016-04-13T02:01:17Z")

</div>

> [@adaher](#):
>
> Let’s posit a scenario where Sanders wins 80% of the remaining primaries but still falls short on pledged delegates. Clinton is not indicted, but is wounded by a rather scathing FBI report on how awful her judgment was and how close she skated the legal line. Her poll numbers look like crap, and now we’re in June and Sanders is still doing MUCH better against GOP opposition than Clinton, whose approval with voters is as bad as Trump’s.
> 
> At that point, I think Sanders has a serious case to make. I think also at that point, you could see a brokered convention. What happens if the superdelegates realize that Clinton is fatally damaged, and Sanders is just too extreme and not even one of them? The superdelegates could just abstain the first round and no one wins a majority. 2nd ballot nominate Joe Biden, everyone goes home happy.

And you really think the FBI is going to release that report in the middle of the primary season? Good luck with that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/162 "2016-04-13T02:06:27Z")

</div>

When do you think it’s coming out? Some reports I’ve heard say after the convention, some before. I would think Democrats would rather get any bad news before they vote. Replacing Clinton on the ballot in will be a herculean task if she’s mortally wounded after she’s nominated. Not that it would matter at that point anyway whether she was replaced or not, given how bad it would make the party look to voters.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/163 "2016-04-13T02:07:26Z")

</div>

> [@asahi](#):
>
> The problem that Hillary Clinton has is that there’s a very good chance that she will have won fewer contests than Bernie Sanders by the end of the primary season.

Cite please. Where are you getting this from? Of the states 538 can make predictions on, Clinton has all of them. Please do not include American territories in this analysis. It’s cute that they vote and all but they don’t matter.

> [@asahi](#):
>
> Moreover, if that happens, it would be thanks to a major win streak in which Bernie would have won a decisive majority of the races from March 15 through June. Some of these are races that Sanders has won have been embarrassingly lopsided defeats.

Sure lopsided defeats in caucus solidly red states like Utah and Alaska. Who cares? Defeats in solidly blue states. Who cares? Sanders beat Clinton in Colorado but not in Virginia, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. Clinton beats Sanders where it matters.

> [@asahi](#):
>
> If Sanders finishes on a win streak that includes Pennsylvania, that would mean that Sanders would have taken some battleground states. He’s also doing better than Hillary in the polls. It’s not just one factor that would be at play; there would be several arguments the Sanders crowd would make.

Yes they make arguments because they are blessed with human imagination and the ability to communicate. It doesn’t mean anyone really takes them seriously.

> [@asahi](#):
>
> Obama actually had fewer votes than Clinton in 2008. But he won more contests (33 to 23), and he went on a major win streak that caused party super delegates to switch allegiances. No candidate who has won the majority of individual contests has lost the primary race in modern history.

Clinton will have a majority in every way you slice it except for the white youth vote.

I can be convinced that I am overconfident of Clinton’s chances. Just provide the cites predicting the things you are predicting.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/164 "2016-04-13T02:14:03Z")

</div>

> [@adaher](#):
>
> When do you think it’s coming out? Some reports I’ve heard say after the convention, some before. I would think Democrats would rather get any bad news before they vote. Replacing Clinton on the ballot in will be a herculean task if she’s mortally wounded after she’s nominated. Not that it would matter at that point anyway whether she was replaced or not, given how bad it would make the party look to voters.

It’s long been FBI policy that they want to avoid affecting elections if at all possible…aside from the fact that it’s highly unlikely they’re going to find against her anyway, and regardless of the bullshit Rudy Giulani is selling.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/165 "2016-04-13T02:45:38Z")

</div>

> [@asahi](#):
>
> The problem that Hillary Clinton has is that there’s a very good chance that she will have won fewer contests than Bernie Sanders by the end of the primary season.

This really is not a “problem” in the minds of any but the most fevered Sanders supporters. So Clinton supporters like you can rest easy.

First, the chance of this happening isn’t really all that good. To date Clinton’s won 20 contests to Sanders’s 17. She has solid leads in the polls, says fivethirtyeight, in NY, CA, NJ, PA, and MD.

(Now–Maybe these polls aren’t accurate, but I don’t know of any particular reason to think they aren’t. And if they are in error, it’s not necessarily in understating Sanders’s support. In the last month, for instance, both Arizona and Ohio looked very close in the polling and went decisively for Clinton.)

Anyway, in addition to these five states, she seems pretty certain to win Puerto Rico and DC as well. To win a majority of contests she’ll just need one from within DE, NM, RI, and CT, which seems more than plausible, though I admit I haven’t seen any polling from these states. Calling Sanders’s chances of winning the majority of contests “good” seems a little unwarranted.

And even if he does win the majority of races, I’m really not sure what this is supposed to prove. The states Sanders has won and the states that have gone to Clinton are not at all comparable. Fun fact 1: of the states that have already voted, the \*\*six most populous \*\* all went for Clinton, mostly by very large margins. Fun fact 2: Of the states that have voted, the **nine least populous** all went for Sanders. He is winning little states. She is winning big states. Even if Sanders were somehow to win CA and PA, he would only have three of the ten most populous. It’s possible he could win all fifteen of the smallest states–which together have a population of less than Florida. Think about that for a minute.

So it is ludicrous to count states, under these circumstances, as if they made any difference: ludicrous to argue that winning Vermont, Wyoming, and Idaho, however big the margins, is somehow worth more than winning (big) in both TX and FL. (And as has been noted, here and elsewhere, kind of offensive because it seems to argue that the votes of African Americans and Hispanics aren’t as important or valuable as votes of white people.)

Which is not to say that some of Sanders’s more enthusiastic supporters won’t try to make that argument. To which I say two things.

–First, it would be an amusing position for them to defend, given that Sanders keeps talking about restoring democracy to America. To argue that it is states, not people, who should decide a nomination is a 180 degree turn from what Sanders says he believes.

–Second, the people who will make and believe that claim are those who are already furious and angry and convinced that the fix is in. They believe that Hillary Clinton somehow carried out massive voter fraud in Arizona, that Bill Clinton kept 17,000 Sanders supporters from voting in Massachusetts by standing near the entrances of four polling places, that the media is in Clinton’s pocket and never gives the time of day to Sanders, that Clinton only wins because she appeals to “low information voters.” You know what? They say whatever they want to say; if it isn’t “We won more states!” it’ll be something else.

All of which means that it doesn’t really matter. Sane Sanders supporters–and I think there are a lot of them–will realize that this is a silly argument. The rest of them won’t be convinced under any circumstances. The superdelegates, the party leaders, know this. Unless Sanders can somehow catch up to Clinton in the pledged delegate department, whoever wins the majority of the states just isn’t going to signify.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/166 "2016-04-13T02:54:53Z")

</div>

Maybe someone already mentioned this but if Bernie Sanders wins more states and surpasses Clinton in over delegates, his best bet would be to court the hundreds of undecided delegates and not put all his hope on making those pledged delegates flip from Hillary to him.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/167 "2016-04-13T12:12:30Z")

</div>

> [@adaher](#):
>
> Let’s posit a scenario where Sanders wins 80% of the remaining primaries but still falls short on pledged delegates. Clinton is not indicted, but is wounded by a rather scathing FBI report on how awful her judgment was and how close she skated the legal line. Her poll numbers look like crap, and now we’re in June and Sanders is still doing MUCH better against GOP opposition than Clinton, whose approval with voters is as bad as Trump’s.
> 
> At that point, I think Sanders has a serious case to make. I think also at that point, you could see a brokered convention. What happens if the superdelegates realize that Clinton is fatally damaged, and Sanders is just too extreme and not even one of them? The superdelegates could just abstain the first round and no one wins a majority. 2nd ballot nominate Joe Biden, everyone goes home happy.

As others say, this is real unlikely.

But I agree that _if_, in some unlikely scenario it did happen then the supers would find themselves in the same place the R Establishment does find itself in todays real world: Two unpalatable choices and no obvious winning path forwards.

Where the game theory gets really interesting is if this comes to pass not too far before the conventions. Now the Rs will nominate first, but they’ll already know the Ds have joined them in being trapped with unpalatable choices.

Will they therefore put up a Ryan, Romney, Kasich, etc. hoping to capture the relative “center /good citizen” vote while the Ds nominate either a crook or a crazy? Or will they decide the Ds are fatally wounded no matter who they pick and now’s the time to go for the jugular and nominate Cruz / Trump for the win?

And which way do the Ds counter once the Rs have played their hand?

Fun to think about.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/168 "2016-04-13T12:14:18Z")

</div>

> [@Johnny\_Ace](#):
>
> It’s long been FBI policy that they want to avoid affecting elections if at all possible…aside from the fact that it’s highly unlikely they’re going to find against her anyway, and regardless of the bullshit Rudy Giulani is selling.

IT’s FBI policy to not take the campaign into account at all, but just to do the investigation right.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/169 "2016-04-13T13:07:02Z")

</div>

> [@Nema98](#):
>
> Maybe someone already mentioned this but if Bernie Sanders wins more states and surpasses Clinton in over delegates, his best bet would be to court the hundreds of undecided delegates and not put all his hope on making those pledged delegates flip from Hillary to him.

If Sanders somehow went on a winning streak of actual large states and started surpassing Clinton in pledged delegates, he wouldn’t need to worry about the super delegates because they’d start moving to him naturally.

But polling in NY, MD, Penn & California suggests that we won’t be seeing that happening. Haven’t seen any new NJ polling but I assume it’s not far different from New York and Maryland.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/170 "2016-04-13T16:37:08Z")

</div>

> [@adaher](#):
>
> IT’s FBI policy to not take the campaign into account at all, but just to do the investigation right.

That’s a nice theory, but as I said in another thread (on a different issue), it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. They don’t want to get involved in electoral politics if at all possible.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/171 "2016-04-13T18:04:39Z")

</div>

> [@asahi](#):
>
> The problem that Hillary Clinton has is that there’s a very good chance that she will have won fewer contests than Bernie Sanders by the end of the primary season.

OK, so there’s three ways of deciding who is winning (and only one counts).  
Delegate count: Clinton is solidly ahead, _even without superdelegates._ (this is the only one that counts).  
Number of states won: Clinton is still ahead. Closer, tho  
Popular vote: Clinton is waaaaay ahead. \* By over two million votes. \*

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/172 "2016-04-13T19:07:34Z")

</div>

> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Agree with **iiandyiiii** and **adaher**. Subject to one additional caveat.
> 
> The ideological gap between Clinton and Obama was smaller than that between Clinton and Sanders. IMO there’s a lot more chance that a decent chunk of Sanders’ insurgent supporters will go away angry and neglect to vote in Nov vs. the situation in 2008.
> 
> The sooner the Clinton nomination becomes mathematically inevitable the more opportunity there is for the convention to be a healing hootenanny of swaying kumbaya singers and for Sanders to work to persuade his hotter headed supporters that supporting the D candidate in Nov is better than abstaining in a snit of ideological purity.
> 
> OTOH, if this thing goes to the supers and/or multiple ballots, the Sanders hotheads won’t just be angry. They’ll be livid and, like Trumpers, be wanting to burn the place down and/or start an ideologically pure party of their own. Which will be unhelpful to say the least come Nov.  
> Neither Ds nor Rs want to become hostage to their hothead fringe. But each knows that turnout is the key to winning in Nov. Said another way, the side which better turns out its hotheads is probably the winner in Nov.
> 
> Clinton needs a plan for making that happen. One that Sanders can and will sign onto as well. That is a tough order today and the longer it takes to get a decision the tougher it will be.  
> Bottom line: It’s gonna get nastier before it gets nicer.

One key difference between the Hillary voters of 2008 and the Sanders voters of 2016 is that so many of the latter are the young idealists who’ve never voted before and I could see members of that group being more likely than seasoned adults who’ve voted in multiple elections to stay home rather than vote.

I doubt this will happen though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/173 "2016-04-13T20:12:23Z")

</div>

> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> Without a huge change or some hugely significant event (possible but unlikely, IMO), she’ll end the process with significantly more pledged delegates (and possibly an outright majority of all delegates just by pledged delegates) and significantly more raw votes than Sanders.

If I counted the remaining delegates right, Clinton needs to get 60% of the remaining pledged delegates to be able to clinch the nomination without the superdelegates’ help.

As for Sanders turning the supers, the Facebook (and, presumably, Twitter) memes have already begun; “I am voting against my Representative and Senators the next time they are up for election if they vote for Clinton at the convention.” Never mind that there’s a very good chance that the only possible way of knowing just how a superdelegate voted is if all of them from a state vote the same way. (Now watch the Sanders supporters demand that a list of delegates and how they voted become public, even if it requires having an open roll call of delegates - that is, when each state casts its votes, somebody yells out, “ROLL CALL!”, and they go through the list of delegates for that state, having each one vote (although I think this is all done electronically now) - and when that’s denied, blame the mysterious Hillary/Media Cabal.)

> [@asahi](#):
>
> Obama actually had fewer votes than Clinton in 2008

Are you including Michigan, where, IIRC, Obama wasn’t even on the ballot (because the DNC had said that, since Michigan’s primary wasn’t before all of the “first four”, it wouldn’t count), in that count?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/174 "2016-04-13T20:16:10Z")

</div>

> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#):
>
> One key difference between the Hillary voters of 2008 and the Sanders voters of 2016 is that so many of the latter are the young idealists who’ve never voted before and I could see members of that group being more likely than seasoned adults who’ve voted in multiple elections to stay home rather than vote.
> 
> I doubt this will happen though.

Exactly my point. Which is why Clinton needs a plan to give the young and easily disaffected contingent of Sanders voters a reason to not become disaffected. Instead they need to stay engaged (and voting!) all the way to Nov & beyond.

One of the things that kneecapped Obama in office was that once having voted for him, a lot of fresh voters went back to ignoring politics for the next 4 years.

That’s not good enough.

If you want Change (with or without a side of Hope 🙂 ) it takes pushing on Congress & on local politics pretty much all the time. Not as a full-time job, but at least as a regular hobby. Doing the \*Vote then ignore for 4 years \* trick is a recipe for irrelevance.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/175 "2016-04-13T21:56:31Z")

</div>

> [@Johnny\_Ace](#):
>
> They don’t want to get involved in electoral politics if at all possible.

That also means they aren’t going to issue the statement \*clearing \*her until after the election. They’re going to keep quiet and let it not be an issue. But it’s fun to dream about either way, isn’t it?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/176 "2016-04-13T22:14:29Z")

</div>

What do you mean, “the statement clearing her”? The way they clear someone is by not saying anything at all. You know, just like they’re doing right now.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/177 "2016-04-13T22:34:25Z")

</div>

Normally, yes. This situation is not normal.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/178 "2016-04-14T00:44:53Z")

</div>

> [@DrDeth](#):
>
> OK, so there’s three ways of deciding who is winning (and only one counts).  
> Delegate count: Clinton is solidly ahead, _even without superdelegates._ (this is the only one that counts).  
> Number of states won: Clinton is still ahead. Closer, tho  
> Popular vote: Clinton is waaaaay ahead. \* By over two million votes. \*

Clinton is ahead in the popular vote – for now. But as I pointed out, she actually won more votes than Obama in 2008. Yes, Michigan didn’t vote, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She’d still have won the popular vote. The party supers switched sides once it became clear that minorities and white youth were more enthusiastic to vote for Obama than Hillary. That happened much sooner than in this election. My point is, that switch could still happen. It might be possible to see this now, but we’re still 2 months from the end of the race and there’s a lot of voting left. NY and MD seem to be locks for Hillary. Everything else, though, is up for grabs.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/179 "2016-04-14T01:06:50Z")

</div>

> [@asahi](#):
>
> Clinton is ahead in the popular vote – for now. But as I pointed out, she actually won more votes than Obama in 2008. Yes, Michigan didn’t vote, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She’d still have won the popular vote. The party supers switched sides once it became clear that minorities and white youth were more enthusiastic to vote for Obama than Hillary. That happened much sooner than in this election. My point is, that switch could still happen. It might be possible to see this now, but we’re still 2 months from the end of the race and there’s a lot of voting left. NY and MD seem to be locks for Hillary. Everything else, though, is up for grabs.

The supers switched in 2008 because Obama had won a majority of pledged delegates, and because his wins in low-turnout caucus states suggested that his victories represented more voters, despite receiving fewer votes. It’s possible a similar trend will occur this year, but it’s doubtful based on any currently available data (votes already cast + polls of upcoming states.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545/180 "2016-04-14T01:10:04Z")

</div>

> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#):
>
> If I counted the remaining delegates right, Clinton needs to get 60% of the remaining pledged delegates to be able to clinch the nomination without the superdelegates’ help.

And she _might_ even get there. The odds are no worse for her to overperform current polling than to underperform it. Solidly up double digits in NY and PA. MD even more. And if momentum is an actual thing from there it could snowball … or not. 🙂

The Sanders saved by the supers play is a hypothetical one that is less probable that even Clinton hitting the 59 to 60% needed to win with all superdelegates voting against her. It is interesting that initially some Sanders supporters felt the interpretation that such was what Sanders was delusional frothing on my part, accusing him of want to overturn democracy and of being unethical … but now that that contingency plan has been explicitly confirmed by Devine the idea of superdelegates voting other than according to the majority vote seems peachy keen to many. Again, MHO remains that superdelegates are certainly able to tip the scale some, but that going against both the pledged delegate and popular vote results is something that should only be done in a very _extreme_ circumstance.

> [@](#):
>
> Are you including Michigan, where, IIRC, Obama wasn’t even on the ballot (because the DNC had said that, since Michigan’s primary wasn’t before all of the “first four”, it wouldn’t count), in that count?

[Not.](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html) But nearly. Without MI and with estimates for the caucuses the popular vote ended up Obama +0.4%. With MI it was Clinton +0.5%.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545.md?page=8)

[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sanders-saved-by-supers/748545.md?page=10)
