Awaiting Mrs. Clinton

With Mr. Cruz's withdrawal from the Republican race, Mr. Trump has all but sealed the nomination. He'll officially get the number of delegates needed on June 7, but the lack of any opposition means that Mr. Trump can now focus exclusively on the Democratic nominee.

That will be Mrs. Clinton, but Mr. Sanders is not going away quietly. He won the Indiana primary last night, although Mrs. Clinton still leads him in pledged delegates by nearly 300 (1704-1414). Even further against him is that of the 714 unpledged delegates, almost 500 have stated that they will be voting for Mrs. Clinton at the convention, although they are free to change their minds.

It is this use of the superdelegates that gives Mr. Sanders the grist to keep going and why pulling over his supporters will take a little more effort than just getting the nomination. It takes 2383 delegates to win the Democratic nomination. Mrs. Clinton currently has 1704 pledged delegates, meaning that she would need to win 679 of the remaining 933 pledged delegates available know for an absolute certainty that she had the nomination. Given that the Democratic primaries are divided proportionally, this is effectively impossible unless Mr. Sanders more or less drops dead.

But, when you throw in that Mrs. Clinton has received verbal pledges from nearly 500 superdelegates, her winning requirement drops to only about 180 delegates. This means that she will declare effective victory on June 7, regardless of whether she wins any states that night or earlier. Of course, she will win some of the states (New Jersey for example), but it is not out of the realm of possibility that Mrs. Clinton may not win another contest until June 7. The contests in between then and now are Guam (May 7), West Virginia (May 10), Kentucky and Oregon (May 17), the Virgin Islands (June 4) and Puerto Rico (June 5). None of these states/territories are in Mrs. Clinton's wheelhouse save perhaps Kentucky and Puerto Rico, but expect Mr. Sanders to be competitive in all of them.

So you have the possibility of Mr. Sanders winning a number of contests leading up to the big day of June 7 and then she will declare victory before all the votes are even fully counted there. I personally would expect Mrs. Clinton to win both New Jersey and California so she will probably wait until the California polls have closed at least if not until California is declared for her, depending on how long that will take. If this does happen, Mr. Sanders' followers might be a bit put out. Mrs. Clinton did not win outright in their mind (in contrast to Mr. Trump, who did despite all the talk of a brokered convention) and was instead anointed by the party insiders. Granted, she will have more pledged delegates that Mr. Sanders, but the absence of outright victory is likely going to stick in the craw of these supporters.

This is where it will be dangerous for Mrs. Clinton. Knowing that she has these 500 superdelegates means that she knows that she is going to be the nominee and with the Republican contest now over, will be expected to pivot to focus her fire on Mr. Trump. However, with Mr. Sanders refusing to go away, and especially if he continues to win states prior to Mrs. Clinton securing her victory, his supporters are likely going to get even angrier at the establishment. I seriously doubt that a significant amount will cross over to vote for Mr. Trump, but given the youth contingent that makes up Mr. Sanders' followers, a number of them might stay home and turning out the youth and minority vote was a major factor in Mr. Obama's two victories.

So we shall see how it goes. Mr. Trump is going to square off against Mrs. Clinton and we'll be playing the Veep-stakes game now, but as much work as Mr. Trump has in front of him to mend fences, Mrs. Clinton likely has just as big of a job and she still has someone breaking boards in her backyard.