Vermont Senator Suggests Superdelegates Should Support Caucus or Primary Winners
Will Bernie Sanders try for a contested Democratic convention this summer in Philadelphia?
Rachel Maddow seems to be pushing that theory.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Thursday night, Sen. Sanders made clear he thinks the superdelegates who are supporting former Secretary Hillary Clinton should be open to supporting him. And immediately after her interview, Maddow called it the “big news that Senator Sanders just made there, about how he thinks the Democratic convention is going to go this year. Wow.”
What exactly did Sen. Sanders say?
“We think if we come into the convention in July in Philadelphia, having won a whole lot of delegates, having a whole lot of momentum behind us, and most importantly perhaps being the candidate who is most likely to defeat Donald Trump, we think that some of these superdelegates who have now supported Hillary Clinton can come over to us,†the Senator from Vermont told Maddow.
Speaking about states he won by large margins – he cited New Hampshire as an example – Sanders said, “I think it is not unreasonable for the people of those states to say to their superdelegates, ‘Hey, how about representing the people of our state, and the outcome of the caucus or the primary?'”
That led Maddow later to say, “So maybe we’re going to have a contested convention in Cleveland, and in Philadelphia?”
Sanders had already made news Wednesday when he said in a statement after his Super Tuesday losses in all five states, “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories on Tuesday. I also want to thank the millions of voters across the nation who supported our campaign and elected delegates who will take us all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.”
“With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination,” Sanders added.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, speaking with Maddow after the Sanders interview, may have poured a bit of cold water on Maddow’s hypothesis.
“I think what he said was, ‘We will fight for this nomination. The rules of the nomination are such that there are bound delegates that we’re going to fight to get as many as possible,” Hayes, paraphrasing the Vermont Senator, said. “‘And there are superdelegates. And we’re going to fight for them as well.'”
The entire interview is worthwhile, but jump ahead to about the 3:13 mark for the relevant portion.
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Image: Screenshot via MSNBC/TwitterÂ