While the convention rules can be changed each convention, in 1992 Jerry Brown wasn’t allowed to speak at the convention since he didn’t endorse Clinton/Gore
Obviously, there are considerations not related to actually winning the election; if he concludes that being a “Presidential candidate” offers him a bigger platform for his policy ideas than not being one, he may well take it to the convention, as of course he has every right to do.
ISTM that his only real shot at the nomination at this point would be for Hillary to have to withdraw for some reason. I want to make it clear that I am not among those who are expecting her to be indicted for her secret emails about Vince Foster’s unmarked grave in Benghazi, but the chance of some medical or political crisis coming up between now and the convention is certainly nonzero.
ISTM further that as the only other Democrat who has demonstrated support from a large section of the party, he clearly should be the nominee in such a case. However, I’m not sure the DNC would see it that way. Accordingly, there’s a reasonable case to be made that he should keep trying to get as many delegates as he can to improve his bargaining position in the event that bargaining becomes necessary.
So, to the OP, I really have no idea, but I’ll say not until after the last primary.
My correction, the person nominated does not have a right to speak (viz. ask for votes) but they are entitled to have someone make a nomination speech and seconding speech on their behalf (not to exceed 20 minutes total).
It’s an interesting point, but I honestly wonder if having 40% of the delegates really gives him any more bargaining power than having had 40% at the point when he suspended his campaign.
I’m talking about him dropping out before she has 50+% of the delegates. And it’s not about just getting a chance to speak, it’s to give him the second best spot to speak.
Anyway, he’s not dropping out yet. Hillary had good wins on Tuesday, but she didn’t put him away. But Bernie has to score some big wins soon to have any chance.
I think it is way to early for Sanders to consider suspending. Look at a map of states won - Clinton won the South and Mass. (big surprise) but Sanders won everywhere else. If he can win MI, NY, PA, OH he’s right back in this and I don’t think that’s outside the realm of possibility.
It’s not enough for Bernie to win though — he has to win decisively. He’s in the hole behind Clinton and the states’ proportional awarding of delegates makes it harder for him to close the gap; he can edge Clinton out for a win but walk away with only a few delegates more than her, and that won’t be enough.
Well MI is in 5days and he’s consistently polling 20+ behind. OH is on 3/15 and he’s recently polled 15 behind. IL is that day too and he’s running 19 behind. Now PA and NY are not until later but if, just if, he actually gets roughly those results, what is your take then, on 3/15?
(Note again: he’ll rack up a few states along the way, Kansas, Nebraska, Maine … but again, smaller states and won’t be by the sorts of blow outs she is winning by mostly.)
Maybe, but the math isn’t so easy for just winning, and he’s down significantly in all of those states where polling has been done (that’s MI/OH).
To show the math and how Bernie’s wins work out, imagine he wins Nebraska and Kansas by about a 10% margin, like he did Oklahoma. That gives him (estimated) 14 delegates from Nebraska, Clinton will get 11. That gives him 18 delegates from Kansas, Clinton gets 15. Then let’s say Clinton wins Louisiana 75-25, which is what 538 is estimating, that gets Clinton 38 delegates, Sanders 13. So 3 states, 2 wins, and his net gain on Clinton? Well, -26, so he is now ~215 in the hole. I haven’t seen polling for Maine (voting the day after the other three), but let’s say he does really well there and wins 65% to 35%, he’ll walk away with 16 delegates and Clinton gets 9, so he’s still down net 17 delegates despite winning 3 primaries out of 4.
The proportional system makes it very difficult to come back from even a 100 delegate deficit, and it’s largely impossible when Clinton has some states where she’s likely to get 30-40 delegate margin victories. The South didn’t stop voting after Super Tuesday, although if I was Sanders I’d certainly wish it had.
Looking at Michigan and Florida which have recent polling, Bernie is projected to lose Michigan 64-33. That gives Hillary 83 delegates, Sanders 43. Florida he is projected to lose 67 to 29. That’s 143 delegates to Hillary, 71 to Bernie. So those two states alone build a 112 delegate margin for Hillary at current projections. [Please note, I’m doing “quick and dirty” proportional math, due to how rounding is handled and how the polling data itself doesn’t actually = 100% this isn’t intended to be a high fidelity delegate estimate, but is a pretty close approximation based on current polling.]
Edit: Mississippi is also voting the same day as Michigan, and she could win 80% of the vote there, getting say, 30 out of 36 delegates, so even Mississippi would be a 24 delegate margin builder. The problem is losing moderately sized and large states by enormous margins means you have to win moderately sized and large states by enormous margins in return. Like to counteract polling in Florida if that is how it turns out, Bernie would need to say, win 90% of the vote in Illinois, or 97% of the vote in Ohio.
Oh well, let 'em dream.
First of all, I agree that considering what Sanders wants, he probably isn’t going to suspend anytime soon.
Second, I’ve seen Bernie supporters compare his position now to the Obama position in 2008. Is that appropriate? Does he have a comparable path to the nomination?
Leaving out the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries, Obama never trailed Clinton.
Clinton and Obama were practically neck and neck going into Super Tuesday, and were practically neck and neck coming out of it. Obama won 13 states and picked up 847 delegates. Clinton won 10 states and picked up 834 delegates. It was still very much anyone’s race afterward. Bernie is in a much worse position relative to Clinton than Obama was.
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With the leading vote getter 3/15 coming up I figured this is a good time to revive this thread.
3/15 seems improbable now (it had been my choice). I wonder though if the polling is indeed on target this time, and he not only is blown away in Florida, NC, and IL, but also loses by double digits in Ohio, the poster child bellwether state, how he’ll proceed.
I would love to see that happen, but I tend to think the model I posted elsewhere has a good chance of being right, which would mean wins in Ohio and Missouri and a near miss in Illinois, which would of course be more than enough fuel to keep him going even as he would still fall further behind in the delegate race with fewer chances to make up ground coming up.
How important is it really for Sanders to drop out sooner than later? I know the common wisdom is sooner is better because then she can turn her energies to campaigning against the opposing party but is that particularly useful this year? The Republicans are doing a fine job of ripping into each other. Maybe the longer she stays out of the mud the better.
There are no more debates scheduled , just a TBD for April. If there’s a Hillary blowout on March 15, I see no reason for another debate. Sanders may very well continue on to the end of the primaries but blowout loses on Tuesday effectively ends his campaign
Yes Slacker, there could be another set of epic polling fails, and a retrofitted model may turn out to be more predictive than the polls are. I did create a thread to discuss if the polls will fail that badly again and in which way. The question though is if hypothetically they do not fail that badly and he still loses Ohio by double digits albeit not 20 points, how would he proceed?
He seems to already be accepting that he won’t be overtaking her in pledged delegates and is beginning to make a “winning more states” argument that includes the critical importance of (the apparently toss-ups of) Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado … and placing the bet … Ohio. If (and given the polling fail in Michigan it is an if) he loses Ohio badly and starts to approach a 300 pledged delegate count deficit, what does he play as his narrative from here, assuming he does continue to play?
CarnalK the issue is not beginning to attack the presumptive GOP nominee but beginning the healing process within Democratic ranks. There already are Sanders supporters who will never come around to Clinton and will, minimally, stay home rather than vote for her no matter the other option is. He is more often characterizing her in more personal negative ways, questioning her honesty, and portraying her as a pawn of the 1%. I personally notice the dogs that do not bark: last debate Clinton came back to a compare and contrast the quality of both of them in comparison to the GOP field; Sanders notably did not echo it this time.
Here’s my perception of reality: there is zero possibility of Sanders catching all the way up in pledged delegates and zero possibility that the supers will flip en masse to him without both that and a popular vote win, no matter how many states he wins. But the schedule does soon come to the portion where he will eke out wins more often, even if he makes fairly little delegate progress in the process. The public perception of that will be that she is a weaker candidate and put together with his hammering that she is not honest and a pawn of the 1%, and how she will need to react to that, the general election prospects are hurt.