Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, talked up preparation for a contested convention in Philadelphia come July, following a decisive win in Wisconsin.
“We’ve mapped out a path to victory in our campaign in terms of delegates—pledged delegates—and we don’t have to win everywhere, but we do have to win most of the states coming up,” Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told MSNBC on April 5.
“So there’s no one state that’s a must-win, and as we look forward we’re gonna be able to accumulate the delegates we need to get the pledged delegate lead by the end of this primary and caucus process.”
Sanders’s win in Wisconsin furthers the theory that it’s possible that neither the Clinton nor Sanders campaign will go into the convention with a clear majority of pledged delegates, although that’s contingent on upcoming delegate-rich states: New York, Pennsylvania, and California.
Weaver argued that superdelegates “don’t count until they vote, and they don’t vote until we get to the convention.”
With that in mind, he looked towards the convention: “So when we arrive at the convention, it will be an open convention, likely with neither candidate having a majority of pledged delegates. So I think it'll be an interesting Democratic convention.”
The Sanders campaign, however, isn’t looking to just challenge Clinton as the nominee.
“What this campaign is looking for, and what the senator is looking for, is going into the convention and coming out with the nomination,” Weaver said.
Clinton’s campaign responded saying that there’s plenty of delegates for a candidate to come out with a majority. New York, whose primary is on April 19, has 247 delegates at stake, and Clinton has recently declared that the contest is a “must win“ primary for Sanders.
With the pledged delegate count at 1,300 to 1,090 in favor of Clinton, the required delegate count for a majority is 2,026 is technically possible for both candidates without the help of superdelegates. The math, though, favors Clinton.
