Three things Bernie Sanders needs to do to win the Democratic nomination

Bernie Sanders has gone on an astounding run in the Democratic presidential race in the past week. In five out of the last six states to vote, nearly three out of every four voters have selected the Vermont senator over Hillary Clinton. “We believe we have a path to victory,” Sanders strategist Tad Devine told reporters on a conference call on Monday. “While Hillary Clinton is the clear frontrunner … she has emerged as a weak frontrunner.”

But have Sanders’ chances of grasping the nomination improved appreciably with his big wins out west? Even setting aside the former secretary of state’s lead among superdelegates – party elites who can vote however they choose – the relatively small number of pledged delegates at stake in the recent state contests means Sanders did not actually gain much ground.

He won a total of 128 delegates in Arizona, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington combined, to Clinton’s 75. That puts Clinton at 1,712 delegates including 469 superdelegates, while Sanders has 1,004 including 29 superdelegates. A total of 2,383 are needed to win the nomination.

Sanders, however, is claiming momentum, and his campaign points to more than $4m in donations that have poured in since Saturday. In fact, given certain ideal conditions – including a herd shift among those superdelegates – Sanders still has a chance to win the nomination, if he can do at least three things.

Bolster his share of the vote

The first of those is simple enough in theory: increase his vote share. Unlike the incredibly complex set of Republican regulations, for Democratic candidates, a higher number of votes translates more directly to a higher number of delegates. After his losses on 15 March, Sanders needed to get an average vote share of 60% to overtake Clinton’s delegate numbers. Since 15 March, Sanders has had a string of big wins in Idaho (where he got 78% of the vote), in Utah (79%), Alaska (82%), Hawaii (70%), and Washington (73%).

Those numbers make it seem as though Sanders is ahead of target to take the nomination – they’re the much-needed “momentum” that the Vermont senator mentioned in his victory speech on Saturday. But that momentum will be difficult to sustain all the way from now until the Democratic National Convention in July.

“We’re obviously going to have to win most of the states coming up,” Devine said. “We’re going to have to win by large margins. I don’t know if we’re going to hit 82% again, like we did in Alaska.”

Several states are looking particularly tough. In New York, for example, Sanders’ polling average is just 29%, according to the two most recent polls of voters there. With 291 delegates up for grabs and the primary just weeks away, Sanders will have to fight hard to change those numbers. It’s a similar story in Pennsylvania and Maryland – both states where primaries are looming soon, both states with large numbers of delegates available and both states where Sanders is polling at less than 30%.

Clinton’s campaign office knows these numbers, too. A fundraising email sent on Monday read: “After three losses on Saturday, our number one focus is now more important than ever: We must turn out folks in key states like Pennsylvania and New York so that we can finally secure the nomination.”

New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland have something else in common: in all three states, more than 10% of the population is black (in Maryland, 30% of the population is black). To get the nomination, it’s important that Sanders gain the support of those voters. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, black voters are expected to account for one-fifth of the electorate in 2016’s primaries.

Peter Woolley, professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, said this was important for Clinton going into the north-eastern contests. “Hillary Clinton is relatively strong in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, three industrialized, complex states, states with a lot of education and unemployment at the same time,” Woolley said. “A good deal of her strength is a large number of minority voters, especially African American voters. Among minority voters, Hillary Clinton is a brand. A trusted, reliable brand.”

Winning? Make sure we know

Aside from increasing the percentage of votes he wins, the second thing that Sanders needs to do is increase public awareness of his wins (and minimise nitpicking coverage – like this article – which adds caveats to his successes). Writing in the New York Times on Monday, Yamiche Alcindor describes a recent phone call from Sanders in which he told the political reporter: “I don’t want to disturb the media narrative too much, but don’t write us off.”

Messaging matters and Sanders knows it – in Wisconsin, where 58 Democratic delegates will be doled out next week, Clinton has a lead of just three percentage points, according to recent polls. If enough voters in Wisconsin believe Sanders could win, he just might. According to Woolley, Sanders’ successes on 26 March might already have made a difference. “I think a lot of people are going to be willing to give him a second look who might not otherwise have done so, if he had faltered.”

According to Clinton’s press secretary, though, Sanders’ office is overstating his momentum:

Convince the superdelegates

The third thing on Sanders’ nomination checklist will only become important if he can successfully check off the first two – if the Democratic race gets sufficiently close, he’ll need to convince some of the superdelegates to choose him over Hillary Clinton. There are a lot of them to convince.

As heartbreaking as Sanders’ likely second-place finish may be for his supporters, they would seem to have little grounds to blame the process. The process was the same in 2008, and Clinton, who ran a closer race then against Barack Obama than Sanders is running against Clinton, accepted her defeat before many supporters were ready to.

Yet Woolley, the political scientist, agreed that Sanders had “momentum” in a few important senses.

“I think it’s clear he’s got enough momentum to do some key things,” Woolley said. “He’s got enough momentum to keep his fundraising going. He’s got enough momentum to keep the media interested in the contest. He’s got enough momentum to make potential voters listen to him, when he comes to campaign here.”

But time is running out for Sanders to achieve the strategic goals described here. As of today, 57% of the available 4,763 Democratic delegates have been handed out. The nomination is still Clinton’s to lose.