Is a Winning Scenario For Sanders Even Possible?

Take a good long look at this fascinating chart from Nate Silver:

Does this look feasible to you? Then you can say with a straight face Sanders has a chance. https://t.co/XNxWHQrEMLpic.twitter.com/xfyJ0it3Fr

For Sanders to have any chance at flipping more than a few superdelegates, he'll need to end the primaries with at least one more pledged delegate than Clinton. And that's not even considering Clinton's popular vote victory. Otherwise the superdelegates will stick with Hillary and give her the nomination...as they should.

So let's take a quick look at the upcoming contests to see if Nate's chart is feasible.

First up is Wisconsin, which is an open primary (good for Sanders) with early voting (good for Clinton). This is no gimme for Sanders though, as the polls have been tight for months. Also, Nate Silver only has him at a 57% chance to win with a projected margin of about one point. If Bernie loses here, he's truly toast...but I do think he will probably win by a few points. However, if he wins by anything less than +16...guess what? He's only falling further behind where he needs to be.

Next up is Wyoming on the following Saturday and it wouldn't surprise me if he hits his target of +57 here. The only problem is that a very tiny number of delegates are at stake.

Then New York, where he has to win. But apparently even the Sanders campaign knows that's not going to happen. 

Sanders camp tells Politico goal in NY is reach "credibility threshold" of 40%. Huh? They need to WIN--& by abt 20 https://t.co/rZycZ8a2iJ

So...I guess that's that. He's not going to win New York and won't be the nominee. Hillary is way ahead in the polls and will probably win by 30 points or so. But for argument's sake, let's say Clinton only wins New York in a 5-point squeaker...52-47%. I'd say a result like that is his absolute best case scenario, as unlikely as it may be. Even then he falls further behind.

The next week brings Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island and Connecticut. For Sanders to hang on after New York, he'll really need solid victories in every single one of these states. However, he's currently down in PA & MD by around 30 points. DE seems just as unlikely for him. RI and CT seem like possible wins for Bernie...but by +33 and +13 respectively? No way.

Then comes Indiana, which is more likely a close Clinton win rather than a 16-point Sanders landslide.

Sanders will probably win Oregon, but not with caucus-style 48-point blowout. +15 is more like it, as it's a closed primary.

And does anyone really expect Sanders to win New Jersey? Clinton will win that by 10 points at the very least...probably much more.

Finally, the very best that Sanders can reasonably hope for in California is to bring it to a rough delegate tie. That would be impressive for sure, but not nearly enough to change the final outcome. There's simply no reason to believe that he could have a solid 15-point win there.

There are plenty of contests that I've left out, but you get the idea. For Sanders to emerge in mid-June with more pledged delegates than Clinton seems essentially impossible...logically, demographically and mathematically.

And "essentially impossible" will probably become "absolutely impossible" by the end of April.

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Originally posted at HillaryHQ.com