LOUISVILLE, Ky.: White House dreams fading, Bernie Sanders added another state to his tally against Hillary Clinton with a win in West Virginia on Tuesday — a victory that will do little to slow the former secretary of state’s steady march toward the Democratic presidential nomination.
Meanwhile, Republican Donald Trump also won there and in Nebraska, a week after he cleared the field of his remaining rivals. They were not victories likely to heal the party’s wounds, as some GOP leaders continue to hold off offering their endorsement of the party’s presumptive nominee.
The result in the West Virginia Democratic primary underscored the awkward position Clinton and the party’s establishment face as they attempt to turn their focus to the general election. Sanders has won 19 states to Clinton’s 23, but she is 94 percent of the way to winning the nomination — just 145 delegates short of the 2,383 required.
That means she could lose all the states left to vote by a landslide and still emerge as the nominee, so long as all her supporters among the party insiders known as superdelegates continue to back her.
Clinton needs to win just 14 percent of the delegates and uncommitted superdelegates at stake in the remaining contests, and she remains on track to capture the nomination in early June.
Still, Sanders is vowing to fight on. He campaigned in California on Tuesday for the state’s June 7 primary, and his victory in West Virginia highlighted anew Clinton’s struggles to win over white men and independents — weaknesses Trump wants to exploit in the fall campaign.
Among those voting in the state’s Democratic primary, about a third said they would support Trump over either Clinton or Sanders in November. An additional 2 in 10 said they wouldn’t vote for either candidate. But 4 in 10 also said they consider themselves to be independents or Republicans, and not Democrats, according to exit polls.
While Sanders is still attracting thousands to rallies, his campaign has grown harder as Clinton closes in on the nomination. His fundraising has fallen off and so, too, has his advertising, with only about $525,000 in ads planned for California and $63,000 each in West Virginia and Oregon, according to advertising tracker Kantar Media’s CMAG.
That’s a significant decline from the wall-to-wall advertising campaign he ran earlier in the primary, during which his $74 million in ads outspent Clinton by $14 million.
Edward Milam, of Cross Lanes, W.Va., is a self-described socialist who gave money to the Sanders campaign but his vote Tuesday to Clinton.
“After about six-seven months of debating and watching, I think Hillary has a lot more to offer than Bernie internationally,” the 68-year-old retiree said. “I think she handles herself well. I’ve known about her for 30 years, just like everybody else has. I don’t think there will be any surprises.”
Trump picked up all 36 delegates available in Nebraska’s Republican presidential primary, giving him 89 percent of the delegates needed to win the GOP’s nomination.
Trump is the only candidate left in the race and is the party’s presumptive nominee, although other candidates were still listed on the ballot in Tuesday’s primaries.
The billionaire businessman won at least three delegates in West Virginia. The other 31 delegates in West Virginia are elected directly by voters. Their names appear on the ballot, along with the presidential candidate they support.
Clinton won the Democratic presidential primary in Nebraska, but it’s a victory for the Democratic front-runner that won’t get her any closer to clinching her party’s nomination.
That’s because Nebraska allocated all 25 of its delegates to this summer’s Democratic National Convention in a caucus held on March 5 that was won by Sanders.