It was billed as a “Still Sanders” rally, a way to shame CNN and the rest of the media for covering up the success of Bernie Sanders’s campaign for president. It took over a street in Hollywood area of Los Angeles yesterday — coincidentally, a day that Sanders was appearing on CNN to discuss his future plans. And to the faithful, it shared new information about how Sanders, counted out in California, was gaining ground. “It is absolutely true that San Francisco has flipped for Bernie,” said organizer and emcee Cary Harrison. This was not true. The consolidated city-county of San Francisco gave a victory to Hillary Clinton, of 116,359 votes to 99,594 for Sanders. As of June 24, there were no mail-in or provisional ballots left to count. Yet for a small group of Sanders diehards, California’s ridiculously slow count of mail-in and provisional ballots is a source of hope, and evidence of media’s failure. Since election day, three of the 58 California counties that at first seemed to vote for Clinton flipped to Sanders. A 12-point Clinton victory margin has shrunk to nine points. The relative lack of coverage here fuels events like the Still Sanders march, a look at a world in which the Vermont senator remains in the hunt for the presidency.
… Since June 7, Clinton has added 692,629 votes, for a total of 2,633,209 statewide. Sanders has added 703,176 votes for a total of 2,205,219. On election day, Clinton appeared to win the state by 438,537 votes; as of today, her lead is 427,990 votes. (For comparison, Clinton defeated Barack Obama in the 2008 California primary by 421,522 votes.)
The new votes have helped Sanders slice into Clinton’s delegate lead, but only marginally. On June 7, the Associated Press projected that Clinton would win 269 of California’s pledged delegates, to just 206 for Sanders. As of today, Clinton can claim 259 delegates to 216 for Sanders.
Sanders himself has never said that Clinton won California; at the same time, he has stopped suggesting that he will try to win the nomination by convincing superdelegates to come over from Clinton. But some of his most fervent supporters are grappling with the election in their own way.
Full Article: ‘Still Sanders’ activists cling to hope of ‘flipping’ California – The Washington Post.