Day: March 6, 2016

By now everyone has seen this viral video of Ben Carson toppling out of the back of the GOP clown car and wondering around dazed on a highway for a…

Matt Yglesias' says Bernie Sanders lost last night even though he won 2 states last night. Why?

Kansas and Nebraska combine to offer 58 delegates while Louisiana carries 51. Clinton's margin of victory in her state was much bigger than Sanders' in either of his states, so it is entirely possible that when all is said and done she will have won more delegates than he did. More to the point, with every passing election that Sanders does not alter the fundamental demographics of the race it becomes clearer and clearer that he is drawing dead in this campaign. We've seen time and again that Sanders can beat Clinton in states that have overwhelmingly white Democratic parties. His problem is that there aren't enough white Democrats to make this strategy work. So far, Clinton has won every contest in a state where the African-American share of the population is over eight percent (she's also won Iowa). The Sanders campaign has characterized these as "red states" and it's true that so far that's mostly meant southern states. But Virginia isn't red, and Massachusetts isn't in the South. The problem for Sanders is that Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Indiana are still outstanding with black population shares over 8 percent. California's African-American population is on the small side, but due to giant Asian and Hispanic populations it's one of the least-white states in the union. Two months ago, the Sanders campaign happily conceded that they had no path to victory without improving their standing with nonwhite voters. But over the past couple of weeks they've retreated to proclaiming themselves happy with wins in low-population overwhelmingly white states. That's fine on a level of pure spin, but there's no path to victory here.