The Bernie Sanders campaign is banking on a similar scenario to 2008. | Getty Sanders supporters revolt against superdelegates Outraged by the delegate deficit Sanders faces even after his New Hampshire win, the senator's backers are taking action.

Bernie Sanders lost by a hair in Iowa and won by a landslide in New Hampshire. Yet Hillary Clinton has amassed an enormous 350-delegate advantage over the Vermont senator after just two states.

Outraged by that disconnect – which is fueled by Clinton’s huge advantage with Democratic superdelegates, who are not bound by voting results – Sanders supporters are fighting back.


Pro-Sanders threads on Reddit have been burning up with calls for action, with some supporters even reaching out to superdelegates (who are typically Democratic governors, members of Congress, and top state and national party leaders) to lobby them on the Vermont senator’s behalf. Progressive groups are also taking a stand: There are currently two petition campaigns designed to urge superdelegates to reflect the popular vote, rather than the sentiment of party elites.

In one of them, MoveOn.org activists are targeting undecided and committed Hillary Clinton superdelegates with a clear message: wait until all the votes are counted before throwing support behind a candidate.

The effort, which will begin this week after MoveOn.org polls its supporters to pick which superdelegates to petition first, comes amid growing criticism from Sanders supporters who complain that the game is rigged in the former secretary of state's favor.

As of Sunday, the petition had 112,107 signatures with a goal of 125,000 signatures.

"The next big thing will be this wave of petitions targeting individual superdelegates," said MoveOn Washington Director Ben Wikler. "Asking individual members of Congress and governors and other superdelegates to individually make a pledge to support the will of the voters when it comes time to count their votes."

A second petition by three progressive groups asks superdelegates to "announce that in the event of a close race, you’ll align yourself with regular voters - not party elites." That petition, which grew by 10,000 signatures between Friday and Sunday, had 171,010 signatures Sunday, with a stated goal of 175,000.

"[The] idea is if you're a super delegate, we want to make sure that you understand that the grassroots base of the Democratic party wants you to support the will of the party electorate,” said Wikler. “So a lot of super delegates are party officials, they're governors, mayor of DC, senators, members of Congress. And the other superdelegates are party leaders, people who have been involved in the Democratic National Committee and people who have been really involved in party affairs and all of them should care about making sure that the Democratic nominee is the person who has energy and passion of the Democratic base behind them."

Ana Cuprill, a Wyoming superdelegate pledged to Clinton, said she heard from several Sanders supporters in recent days.

"There's been a handful of people who have been concerned about that," Cuprill said. "They think it's an endorsement from the party itself, which it's not."

Cuprill, the Wyoming Democratic party chair, said she suspected the real point of the petitions is to "spin" to the DNC that "the party is broken," and to affix blame if Sanders doesn't win.

"I just don't really see that as an issue," Cuprill said, of the current superdelegate process.

Bill Hyers, a top strategist for former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's presidential campaign, said in an email he doubted the petitions would make a difference.

"I will tell you if Bernie does have the majority of the delegates by election going into the convention and the superdelegates tried to reverse that, it would be absolutely awful for the Democratic party and all holy hell would break loose," Hyers said. "I don’t really see that happening, but that is why I largely think superdelegate counts are absolutely pointless right now. The candidates just need to go out and win some states."

While the Sanders campaign has an operative in charge of winning over superdelegates -- Nick Carter, the campaign's political outreach director – it’s not yet making a full-throated push to win either undecided superdelegates, or superdelegates committed to Clinton.

"We're going to hear from them in a couple more states and then many states after. And once the sort of verdict begins to come in, from our perspective that's the time to make our case to the superdelegates," said Tad Devine, the campaign's top strategist. "Now many of them have already expressed a preference for Secretary Clinton. I think that's understandable but they also, given the design of the rules, are free to change their mind up until they're standing on the floor of the convention and are about to vote."

The Sanders campaign is banking on a similar scenario to 2008, when Clinton also built up an early lead among superdelegates. But as Obama won more caucuses and primaries, previously uncommitted superdelegates came into his camp, and he even earned some defections from Clinton.

Sanders explained his thinking on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday.

“I think if we continue to do well around the country and if superdelegates - whose main interest in life is to make sure that we do not have a Republican in the White House - if they understand that I am the candidate and I believe that I am who is best suited to defeat the Republican nominee I think they will start coming over to us,” he said, noting that he had just met with a few superdelegates Saturday evening.

For the national party, the issue is a minefield -- and officials take care not to offend either the campaigns or the grass roots. When asked Friday on CNN what she tells voters who view the delegate process as ‘rigged’ on Clinton’s behalf, Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz gave a roundabout answer.

"Well, let me just make sure that I can clarify exactly what was available during the primaries in Iowa and in New Hampshire," she said. "The unpledged delegates are a separate category. The only thing available on the ballot in a primary and a caucus is the pledged delegates, those that are tied to the candidate that they are pledged to support. And they receive a proportional number of delegates going into the — going into our convention.

"Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don't have to be in a position where they are running against grass-roots activists."

The Clinton campaign is also careful to direct the discussion away from superdelegates, and steer it towards its pursuit of pledged delegates.

“We are proud of the strong support we have from elected leaders, Democratic Party officials, grassroots activists and volunteers all across this country who are helping Hillary Clinton earn the nomination,” Clinton campaign senior spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in response to questions about the petitions.