The Democratic Nomination Fight Isn't Overly Close

Let me start by saying something that should have been obvious all along- Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. We get very caught up in micro-events during Presidential elections, when they don't really matter. We get caught up in "the horse-race," mostly because that's the way the race is covered. The coverage is outside of reality though, frankly. We've heard a lot about Bernie Sanders success in this race, and that is actually fair coverage, but then the media has morphed that into the race being excruciatingly close. That is false.

The Democratic Party process is created to do two things- give us a quick and decisive winner, and to make sure every demographic and issue group gets representation. What that does is it gives us an insurmountable leader by the end of the second month in the process, but it also means they won't "clinch" the nomination until June, if they ever do. If you watched in 2008, Barack Obama had an insurmountable lead in delegates by the end of February (month two) of about 160 delegates. At no point could Clinton close that all the way to a tie, or get herself a lead. President Obama never clinched though, actually being pushed over the top by the super-delegates after finishing the primary process with a lead that was about 1/3 the margin of Hillary Clinton's lead right now. The race was over in February. The nomination wasn't technically clinched until July's convention. This is how our process works.

It's important to understand though- Clinton has a much bigger lead than President Obama ever had on her. She has almost three-million more votes, a number neither of them ever lead by. She has a lead of 768 delegates. Her elected delegate lead is 269. She basically leads under any and all ways to configure this fight, as illustrated above. Her lead is significant.

It's also worth noting that nothing in this process "showed weakness." Bernie Sanders ran a credible campaign. He won states. He has a lot of delegates. Even after he was basically too far behind to win the nomination, he continued to win states. Most of the western U.S. will look very good for Bernie on a map when this is over. All of that is good for Bernie, but it's not significant to the general election. Hillary Clinton won contests after she had no shot of beating Barack Obama. Jerry Brown won contests against Bill Clinton after he had no shot. This happens. Voters who support the second place candidate do not become less passionate because they are behind. They don't stay home because the opposition declares they will win. Those second place candidates win some late primaries. It happens. On the final night of the 2008 primary process, I remember watching Hillary Clinton win primaries even as Barack Obama was celebrating crossing the delegate threshold to win (using super-delegates, mind you). She was out of the race quickly and without attacking the then-Illinois Senator. I suspect Bernie Sanders will win several states on June 7th. He may even win California, though i'm not so sure there. Even if he does, it won't matter. Hillary is highly likely to cross 2,383 delegates on June 7th, using her super-delegate endorsements as well. She will have won the contest.

The odds are that Clinton is going to win this race fairly easily. She's going to cross 2,383 early on the night of June 7th, and probably end up with at least 2,700 plus delegates, winning by over 700. She's going to cross 2,026 pledged delegates on the night of June 7th, clinching the majority of the elected delegates, and probably securing herself over 2,100 pledged delegates in the process, possibly keeping him below 2,000 total delegates even. She's going to lead in the popular vote. She's going to win this race by every metric, and we know that over a week before California even votes. That means the race was not overly close.

Perhaps this is not something pleasant for Sanders supporters. I understand, been there and done that. It isn't going to change though. The first female nominee for President is not going to have the nomination taken from her, even though she got the most votes. The super-delegates, whom she currently leads by about 500, are not going to switch sides and go with the second-place finisher. I totally understand why someone who supports Bernie Sanders would want them to, they want their candidate to win. That is not going to happen though. So while we argue about all kinds of nonsense about this primary contest, please understand- we know who is going to win now. She's going to win cleanly, and with a healthy margin. There really isn't much drama here.