John Locher/AP Photo
Bernie Sanders was the only candidate at the Las Vegas debate to say that the delegate leader at the end of the process should get the nomination.
In a Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday marked by numerous highlight-reel moments, many of which were cut and packaged (or deceptively edited) into viral clips now making the internet rounds, the night’s most consequential question came last. “There’s a very good chance none of you are going to have enough delegates to the Democratic National Convention to clench this nomination,” began moderator Chuck Todd. “Should the person with the most delegates at the end of this primary season be the nominee, even if they are short of a majority?”
One by one, the Democratic field announced that they in fact did not believe that whoever finished the 50-state primary process in first place but short of an outright delegate majority should be the nominee. “Whatever the rules of the Democratic Party are, they should be followed,” responded Mike Bloomberg, followed by rough agreement from Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. All of them except Bernie Sanders, who dissented, responding that “the person who has the most votes should become the nominee.”
Superdelegates, the 760-plus Democratic National Committee members, elected officials, and party dignitaries, previously got a first-ballot vote on the presidential nomination. Under new rules adopted this cycle, superdelegates would not get that opportunity this year. However, if no candidate achieves a delegate majority on that first ballot, superdelegates can participate in subsequent balloting to choose a nominee. And everyone but Bernie Sanders affirmed that, rather than short-circuiting the process and giving the delegate leader the nomination, the superdelegates should be able to influence the final decision.
Everyone, including Bernie Sanders himself, expects that Sanders is going to win at least a plurality of delegates in the Democratic presidential primary.
For viewers that hung on long enough to see it, the exchange elicited a wide range of responses. For some, it marked an alarming admission of anti-democratic procedure on behalf of those Democrats who seem willing to override the will of the voters at a brokered convention. For others, it marked an obvious possibility that has arisen from a muddled and overcrowded field and a fractured Democratic Party searching for a consensus choice. The rules, for better or worse, require a delegate majority.
But as much as it was a statement of principle, those answers from the respective candidates indicated a widespread understanding of their individual chances in the race. Everyone, including Bernie Sanders himself, expects that Sanders is going to win at least a plurality of delegates in the Democratic presidential primary.
For all the body blows sustained by newcomer Michael Bloomberg and current delegate leader Pete Buttigieg, that admission tells you all you need to know about the state of the primary. The politicians on that debate stage are profoundly self-interested—after all, they’re politicians. If any of them thought that they would have a delegate lead in July, they would’ve claimed that the delegate leader should be the nominee. That none of them did, save Sanders, tells you what they think of their chances.
Even MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, his head still swimming with visions of a President Sanders leading executions with relish in Central Park, identified this in the debate’s aftermath. “There’s only one candidate there who believes he’s going to have the most delegates going into Milwaukee, and we know who it was, he was the guy who said ‘that person should be the winner,’” he said after the debate. “Everybody else said, I will not have the most delegates, they made it official.” In that telling moment, the other five candidates on the stage were conceding defeat.
For Sanders supporters, the willingness to let the enlightened elites overrule a first-place finish raised hackles. But Sanders’s stance on the mandate of a plurality isn’t purely principled either. In 2016, despite nursing a delegate deficit heading into the convention, his campaign made a push to flip superdelegates to make up the difference between him and Hillary Clinton. “It is extremely unlikely that either candidate will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to get to this number so it’s going to be an election determined by superdelegates,” said campaign manager Jeff Weaver at the time.
Weaver made roughly the same argument that a second-place delegate holder would be likely to make in Milwaukee this year. “We can argue about the merits of having superdelegates, but we do have them,” Weaver said then. “And if their role is just to rubber-stamp the pledged-delegate count then they really aren’t needed. They’re supposed to exercise independent judgment about who they think can lead the party forward to victory.”
Many Sanders supporters would agree that superdelegates really aren’t needed. But in that moment, where Sanders had few options, his leadership was willing to make an electability argument, asserting that party elites should weigh in on which candidate is best positioned to win in November. Bloomberg already began making that argument last night and, as Politico reported Thursday, is actively pursuing flipping superdelegates to his side. (This is all in contrast to what Bloomberg said in 2016, that “Bernie Sanders … would have beaten Donald Trump, the polls show he would have walked away with it.”) Presumably other candidates put in that position would follow suit with scavenging for superdelegates. When the tables were turned in 2016, so did the Sanders campaign.
We seem to have entered the stage of the race where principles have exited the picture altogether, especially for the losers. You cannot square the paeans candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg have made to abolish the Electoral College with their desire to block the candidate with the most votes from becoming the Democratic nominee. After a year of deriding the influence of super PACs and swearing off them, Warren now tolerates the support of a new super PAC called Persist PAC, which has committed to a seven-figure ad buy on her behalf and has not disclosed its donors. The same goes for Amy Klobuchar, who soaked up praise running without a super PAC until just days ago when she finally got one for herself.
It should be said that “following the rules” of the party does not have to necessarily extend to denying the top vote-getter. Having a bloc of delegates, enough to stop a first-ballot victory, confers leverage upon the rest of the field. They could make demands on Sanders—cabinet positions, planks in the platform, any number of concessions. We could see lots of horse-trading, pre-convention, that stops short of what may be considered an anti-democratic result.
Moreover, superdelegates only represent 15 percent of the total delegates at the convention, and the pledged delegates would be free to go anywhere after the first ballot as well. So coalitions of delegates could easily defy a clutch of party leaders and back the top vote-getter.
Ultimately, it still remains unlikely that it will come down to a brokered convention conspiracy in the end. The donor class won’t bankroll three sagging moderates forever, and Bloomberg’s star is already dimming after a brutal debate performance—plus, he isn’t even on the ballot yet. But the recognition of Sanders’s position is notable. So, too, is the age-old dictum that politicians are in the business of practicing politics.
However, even the suggestion of playing fast and loose with the will of the voters is dangerous. As David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, pointed out to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, the prospects of a brokered convention reversing the order would pose an existential threat to the Democratic Party. “Even if someone has [only] a 50 to 100 [delegate lead],” Plouffe said, “we’re really going to take the nomination away from them in Milwaukee? I’m not sure the party recovers from that for decades.”
