Sen. Bernard Sanders was projected to win West Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday night, earning a second straight victory as he continues to stall Hillary Clinton’s coronation as her party’s nominee.
Mr. Sanders claimed victory in an email to supporters at about 8 p.m., or half an hour after the polls closed, and as networks projected him the winner based on exit polling.
“We fully acknowledge we have an uphill climb ahead of us, but we’re used to that,” Mr. Sanders said in the fundraising email. “We have been fighting uphill from the day this campaign began, and we’re going to stay in the race until the last vote is cast.”
He has now won 19 primaries or caucuses, and said he’s preparing for showdowns next week in Kentucky and Oregon.
Mrs. Clinton still holds a significant lead in pledged delegates won in the states, and a massive lead among superdelegates, the party leaders who will likely end up being the deciding factor at the July convention in Philadelphia.
Yet her inability to put the race away is striking, given her years-long campaign and her formidable political operations. It’s even more stunning when compared to likely GOP nominee Donald Trump, who only began campaigning 11 months ago and has already dispatched a far more formidable field of 16 major opponents.
Mr. Sanders said he’s won 45 percent of the pledged delegates to the convention, and held out hope he can still close the gap with Mrs. Clinton.
“We still have that road to victory in winning the majority of pledged delegates,” he said.
But he’ll have to rack up the same kinds of victories as West Virginia, where he was winning by nearly 15 percentage points over Mrs. Clinton, with a majority of precincts reporting.
“Our campaign is generating the energy and the enthusiasm we need to have a large voter turnout in November,” he said at an election-night party.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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