– Uphill battle –
Despite his victories on Saturday, Sanders, who has drawn strong support from young voters with his populist message, still faces an uphill battle to overcome Clinton’s lead, especially as Democrats allocate delegates proportionally by state.
Sanders spent millions of dollars on campaign ads ahead of Saturday’s caucuses and visited Seattle on Friday, giving a rousing rendition of his standard stump speech in which he railed against police brutality, a too-low minimum wage, soaring student debt and other ills.
“Real change historically always takes place from the bottom on up when millions of people come together,” Sanders said to applause and cheers from the crowd in the city’s Safeco Field baseball stadium.
“We need a political revolution!”
He repeated that same message on Saturday in Wisconsin – the next state to hold primaries on April 5 – and reiterated his vow to legalize marijuana.
“Everybody knows marijuana is not a killer drug like heroin,” he said. “And that is why I have introduced legislation to take marijuana out of the controlled substance act.”
By contrast, Clinton in recent days has already shifted her focus toward November’s general election.
She delivered a sombre counterterrorism speech Wednesday in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Brussels, using it as an opportunity to launch vigorous assaults on Republican candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and warn their “reckless” foreign policies would harm US interests.
“We need to rely on what actually works, not bluster that alienates our partners and doesn’t make us any safer,” she said.
Despite the huge delegate gap with Clinton that he needs to fill, Sanders has refused to throw in the towel.
A series of recent polls has shown Sanders consistently doing better than Clinton against Republicans Trump, Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Saturday’s three contests were caucuses, essentially neighbourhood meetings where voters can discuss political platforms and debate the merits of the candidates.
Since they generally require voters to show up in person rather than mailing primary ballots, the format favours Sanders, whose supporters have consistently shown more grassroots enthusiasm.
Millennials and first-time voters have been flocking to Sanders’s message of economic equality, universal health care, and his call to reduce the influence of billionaires on the campaign finance system.
But the delegate math still dramatically favours Clinton.
According to RealClearPolitics poll averages, in the remaining states with the three largest delegate allocations – California, New York and Pennsylvania – Clinton leads Sanders by nine points, 34 points and 28 points respectively.
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