The conventional wisdom regarding the 2016 Democratic primary seems suggest that the system has been hopelessly rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders himself has repeatedly encouraged this viewpoint, arguing that the DNC has been unfair to his campaign by holding closed primaries, scheduling weekend debates, punishing him for improperly accessing Clinton campaign data, and by involving superdelegates in the nomination process. Just the other day his campaign complained that the Democratic National Convention drafting committee won’t include an equal number of representatives from each campaign (side note: why on earth should the losing and winning campaigns have an equal say in the party’s platform?)

In reality, the Democratic nomination process has favored Sanders from day one, as the Sanders campaign took advantage of low-turnout caucuses to inflate his pledged delegate total relative to his share of the actual popular vote. Indeed, Bernie Sanders currently holds 45.47% of the pledged delegates awarded so far despite winning only 42.26% of the popular vote. In contrast Hillary Clinton holds 54.53% of the pledged delegates despite winning 56.19% of the popular vote.

Sanders has benefited from this discrepancy because caucuses allow very few voters to award a large number of pledged delegates. Lets take a look at how each state voted. Specifically, lets look at how many voters are represented by a single pledged delegate in each state. Please note that I am estimating the turnout in a number of the caucus states which didn't report vote counts. There are numerous estimates of turnout in these states, and I always used the largest estimate AND rounded up in an attempt to be fair to Sanders (with the exception of Iowa where Clinton won and I used the lowest estimate I could find). I can’t find any turnout info. for Nevada.

States won by Clinton: States won by Sanders:

South Carolina- 6998 voters/delegate New Hampshire- 10543 voters/delegate

Alabama- 7412 voters/delegate Colorado- 1871 voters/delegate

Arkansas- 6816 voters/delegate Minnesota- 2657 voters/delegate

Georgia- 7504 voters/delegate Oklahoma- 8838 voters/delegate

Massachusetts- 13241 voters/delegate Vermont- 8454 voters/delegate

Tennessee- 5556 voters/delegate Kansas- 1189 voters/delegate

Texas- 6468 voters/delegate Nebraska- 1338 voters/delegate

Virginia- 8264 voters/delegate Michigan- 9273 voters/delegate

Lousiana- 6113 voters/delegate Idaho- 1038 voters/delegate

Mississippi- 6310 voters/delegate Utah- 2472 voters/delegate

Florida- 7987 voters/delegate Hawaii- 1429 voters/delegate

Illinois- 13180 voters/delegate Washington~ 2277 voters/delegate

Missouri- 8865 voters/delegate Wisconsin- 11716 voters/delegate

North Carolina- 10554 voters/delegate Wyoming~ 857 voters/delegate

Ohio- 8682 voters/delegate Rhode Island- 5207 voters/delegate

Arizona- 6216 voters/delegate Indiana- 7695 voters/delegate

New York- 7382 voters/delegate Alaska- 689 voters/delegate

Connecticut- 5970 voters/delegate Maine- 1880 voters/delegate

Maryland- 8906 voters/delegate

Pennsylvania- 8746 voters/delegate

Delaware- 4459 voters/delegate

Iowa- 3194 voters/delegate

TOTAL- 7372 voters/delegate TOTAL- 6648 voters/delegate

Using this chart, it is clear that each one of Sanders’ pledged delegates represent less voters than Clinton’s pledged delegates. Consider the states in which Sanders has netted the most delegates: Vermont, Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, and Washington. With the exception of Vermont, these states all held caucuses that awarded delegates who represent less than 3000 voters. In contrast, Hillary Clinton hasn’t won a single state (not including overseas territories) whose delegates represent less than 3000 voters.

Caucuses disadvantage Clinton by 1) over-representing the voice of the activist wing of the party, and 2) disproportionately depressing the turnout of her voters. Caucuses discourage the turnout of voters who can’t spend several hours voting or who are uncomfortable voting in public. Without going into much detail, exit polls definitely suggest that these types of voters disproportionately support Clinton.

For evidence of this, look no further than the 2008 primary when several states held BOTH caucuses and primaries:

2008 Texas Primary- 50.88% Clinton, 47.39% Obama

2008 Texas Caucus- 43.72% Clinton, 56.18% Obama

2008 Washington Primary- 51.17% Obama, 45.63% Clinton

2008 Washington Caucus- 67.56% Obama, 31.15% Clinton

There are several other examples, but Clinton performed significantly better in primaries in every state that held both types of contests. It is therefore not farfetched to suggest that Clinton would have performed much better in states like Washington, Nebraska, etc. if they had held primaries instead of caucuses.

To conclude, Sanders has been the primary beneficiary of the current Democratic primary rules. Not only has he been awarded disproportionately more delegates than Hillary Clinton, but he also has had his biggest delegate gains from caucus states whose delegates represent less than 3000 voters.

Considering this data, the Sanders campaign has been incredibly disingenuous to suggest that the system is rigged against him. In reality, the inclusion of caucuses in the nominating process negatively affected Hillary Clinton in both 2008 and 2016.