After Nevada win, Bernie Sanders can only be stopped at great cost to Democrats
by Philip Klein
| February 22, 2020 07:33 PM
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After racking up a big win in Nevada, Sen. Bernie Sanders is in a commanding position in the 2020 Democratic presidential race. Though he may not yet be inevitable, we’ve reached the point where it will be hard for establishment Democrats to stop him without inflicting a great cost on their eventual nominee.
Sanders arguably won Iowa, and he now has added a big win in Nevada to his victory in New Hampshire. So, there’s a case to be made that he’s already won the first three contests, and he should do no worse than second in South Carolina.
He will then head into Super Tuesday on March 3 as the best performer in the early contests, and that will be coupled with money, organization, and likely standing as the national front-runner. On that day alone, there will be 16 contests with 1,357 delegates up for grabs — or more than a third of all available.
Here’s the thing about the way Democratic contests work. Because they allocate delegates proportionally, to candidates clearing 15% in states and congressional districts, it’s harder for a front-runner to amass a majority of delegates quickly in a crowded field than in the Republican system, in which there are a lot of states where the winner takes all or most delegates.
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