Monday, April 04, 2016

Sanders' Team Coverts Nevada Loss into Virtual Tie

Taking advantage of some complicated county convention rules, the Sanders campaign garnered more votes and more delegates to turn a 20 to 15 delegate loss in the Nevada caucuses into an 18 to 17 virtual tie.  The conventions took place on Saturday.  Sanders' supporters flooded the convention in Clark County which includes Las Vegas where Clinton counted on unionized workers to provide her with the margin of victory on February 20th.  The result could change again after the Nevada state convention next month.

Sanders currently leads in the opinion polls by 2 percentage points in Wisconsin that votes tomorrow.  He needs to win there and in New York to make his challenge to Clinton's presumptive anointing plausible.  Thanks to the election of a Repugnant Governor and Repugnant judges on the 7th Circuit federal bench, Wisconsin has one of the strictest voter identification laws on the books and it is in effect for the April 5th vote.  An estimated 300,000 residents who do not have a state issued ID card could be denied access to the polls. The new rules impact minorities and students who usually rely on their student cards to vote, but which are no longer recognized by the state. Voter impersonation, the claimed justification for the new rules, is virtually non existent crime in the state.

According to AP Sanders trails Clinton in pledged delegates, 980 to 1,243.  It will be interesting to see if the party establishment changes its mind about Clinton if Sanders comes into the national convention with a slim lead in pledged delegates.  Will democracy prevail?  Stay tuned.