For Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, every possible delegate counts and so while front runner Hillary Clinton is making the rounds in New York, he will be looking west. Today is the Democratic caucuses in Wyoming, and it is another state tailor made for Sanders.
Leaving nothing to chance, Sanders spent Tuesday night — the evening he won Wisconsin’s primary — holding one of his signature large rallies in Laramie, a town of 30,000.
Clinton did not visit the state in large part because Wyoming, is rural, sparsely-populated state and is the home Vice President Dick Cheney. There is the point that the state is solidly Republican, so Democrats don’t spend time trying to win it in the general election.
But Sanders needs delegates so is expected to win yet another rural, western state that, overwhelmingly white. A victory there would Sanders’ eighth win out of the last nine contests, which would be a big morale booster heading into the crucial New York primary on April 19.
Wyoming won’t mean much for the delegate race. It’s a state with 14 delegates — and four superdelegates — up for grabs, nowhere near enough to close the 229-delegate lead Clinton has in pledged delegates.
But for Sanders the name of the game is momentum and rolling up wins, even in the small states remain important. He wants to that Sanders keep Clinton from officially clinching the nomination until the convention, when superdelegates will vote.
That is a tall order for Sanders who has outraised Clinton, $109 million to $75 million, over the last three months, and wins along the way help him prime the small-dollar donor pump for the cash he’ll need to compete in expensive, densely-populated East Coast media markets both in New York and the following week in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.
All of the above listed states are thought to be good states for Clinton, so the math and the clock is running out on Sanders.
