Payton Guion

@PaytonGuion

While New Jersey's presidential primary will likely inflict more damage on the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, his wife isn’t yet saying the Democratic race is over, at least not publicly.

In an exclusive interview with the Asbury Park Press, Jane Sanders insisted, despite unfavorable polls ahead of the final Super Tuesday in primary season, the senator from Vermont will campaign into the Democratic National Convention in late July and hopefully pilfer delegates from Hillary Clinton.

“On June 7, neither candidate will have the requisite number of delegates to be deemed the nominee,” Mrs. Sanders said, referring to next week's primaries. “His purpose of staying in the race is to win it. It’s a long shot, but we’ll see what happens on June 7.”

Recent polls show that Sanders’ chances next week are thin. Analytics website FiveThirtyEight says that Sanders’ Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has a 95 percent chance of winning the New Jersey primary and a 96 percent chance of winning the California primary. Both predictions are based on the combination of numerous polls, including those from Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University.

If Clinton claims both states and doesn’t blow it in the other four states voting Tuesday – Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota – her delegate lead would be all but insurmountable and she would head into the Democratic National Convention with eyes focused firmly on Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Sanders has promised to keep campaigning after next week’s primaries, and is holding out hope that he can convince some superdelegates to swap their allegiance. The Democratic presidential nomination requires 2,383 delegates and Clinton now has 2,312 to Sanders’ 1,545. Clinton, however, is counting more than 500 superdelegates, who are free to make their pick at the convention.

“Over 400 of them were on board before Bernie even entered the race,” Mrs. Sanders said. “Our hope is that they don’t have closed minds.”

Now that he's fallen farther behind in delegates, some political pundits have accused Sanders of holding Clinton back, while Trump’s general election poll numbers have jumped in the past few weeks. Others say Sanders is doing what he’s been doing all along.

Brigid Harrison, a political expert at Montclair State University, said she doesn’t see it as Sanders restraining his rival, just as him trying to pull Clinton left on the issues. Still, Harrison said she thinks Clinton will handily win New Jersey on Tuesday and wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination.

“She tends to be more reflective of Democratic voters overall,” Harrison said of Clinton. “She almost viewed as a favored daughter in New Jersey.”

Compared to Clinton, Sanders has run a campaign relatively free of controversy. But questions have surfaced recently about the senator's 2015 tax returns, which he has not disclosed. Mrs. Sanders said the IRS granted an extension on the returns and her husband would release them as soon as possible, though that's likely to be after the primaries are finished.

Whichever candidate emerges from the convention in July as the Democratic nominee will face a ticket featuring Trump and his yet-to-be-chosen running mate. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is among the names still in the hat for that nomination. Sanders said she thought he would be a poor choice for Trump's vice president.

"Considering how he's handled the livelihood and retirement of New Jersey public servants, I wouldn't be a fan of that at all," she said.