Here’s Bernie Sanders Official Plan To Win — And How You Can Help

By Nathan Wellman

The Bernie Sanders campaign has had tremendous grassroots support from various sources, but his campaign is now kicking the effort into high gear.

Grassroots tools

Among all the usual methods of reaching voters, supporters are being encouraged to host what is called a “barnstorm” event to organize volunteers. These events are described as “a 90-minute organizing meeting designed to sign up everybody in the room to contact voters for Bernie. Whether it be through phone banking or canvassing. The events are fun, high-energy and easy to execute.” Information for hosting barnstorm events can be found here.

Residents of upcoming primary and caucus states can use these events to distribute directions and information for traditional methods of campaigning — canvassing for local primaries and phone banking to reach voters across the country.

Putting March 15 in perspective

The call to action was promptly picked up by the Reddit community, which has become a hub of logistical support for the Sanders campaign, building websites and Facebook pages, phone banking, fundraising, etc. A “corporal” of Maine’s branch of the “Bernie Squad” put Tuesday’s losses in perspective while outlining a “plausible path to victory.”

Regarding Tuesday’s results, they said “Expectations were high after the Michigan upset, so the loss may feel worse than it really was. We did far better in NC than expected. Polls showed a 30% loss and we got a 15% loss. We also exceeded poll numbers in a few other states.”

The briefing heavily emphasized the importance of volunteering, making a point to mention that “some of our huge gains and upsets are due largely to the activism we’ve seen” while encouraging supporters with the astounding fact that “Bernie 2016 has the largest voter contact machine in known campaign history.”

They added, “We’re on track to beat the Obama 2008 record of 100 million (phone calls), which included the general election.”

Bernie Sanders’ must-win states

The campaign will need all the grassroots help it can get. According to the New York Times, most of the coming contests throughout the remainder of March are favorable to Bernie Sanders throughout the end of March. However, Clinton will still likely have a small delegate lead, as states award Democratic delegates proportionally, rather than as a winner-take-all system:

Mr. Sanders is clearly favored to exceed his target — the roughly 16-point, 58-to-42 percent margin of victory — in six of the eight contests over the next month. He’s a strong favorite in the caucuses in Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Wyoming.

Barack Obama won an average of 72 percent of the vote in these contests in 2008, and so far Mr. Sanders is running an average of four points behind Mr. Obama’s showing in caucus states. Mr. Sanders is also a strong favorite in the Utah primary.

Combined, these six states hold 216 delegates. Mr. Sanders might hope to win them by a 2-to-1 margin — perhaps narrowing Mrs. Clinton’s lead by 65 to 70 delegates.

The Times, however, predicted that Sanders would come across formidable Clinton support in both Wisconsin and Arizona, where Clinton has a strong polling advantage. And while Sanders has the clear lead in small-delegate states, the end of the primary will be highly competitive in states where lots more delegates are at stake. The Times estimates Sanders will need to win some of these larger states by convincing margins to truly capture the nomination from Clinton:

The preponderance of delegates will be from the diverse, affluent, blue states along or near the coasts, like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and the District of Columbia.

Based on the results so far, including those from Tuesday night, Mr. Sanders is not a favorite to win big in any of those. He’ll need to beat Mrs. Clinton by at least an average of 10 percentage points, and perhaps more if he under-performs in the other states mentioned.

However, the Sanders campaign has a lot of firepower left in terms of its money advantage. Sanders surpassed Hillary Clinton’s fundraising by $5 million in January, and then raised $43 million in February compared to Clinton’s $30 million. Sanders also pointed out on his website in February that the majority of Clinton’s donors have already put in the maximum contribution of $2,700, meaning Sanders capacity to fundraise is even greater still compared to Clinton.

The media has been trying to sing funeral dirges for Bernie’s campaign for months, and this week has been no exception. However, the movement’s continued enthusiasm and diligence seem to suggest that more historic surprises are not only likely, but inevitable.