Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) on Monday said that voters should remember Democratic superdelegates are people too.
“I am a human being and a superdelegate,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “[We are] people too.”
{mosads}Baldwin said that she supports Hillary Clinton over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for the party’s presidential nomination because of the former secretary of State’s edge in delegates and voter support.
“The superdelegates in large part are going to go with the U.S. popular vote as well as the pledged delegate vote,” she said. “You see Hillary Clinton maintaining a very strong lead in both.
“Depending on what happens here in New York tomorrow, it may become mathematically impossible for Bernie Sanders to catch up,” Baldwin added, referencing the Empire State’s Democratic presidential primary.
“At this point he still could, but I don’t see that happening. My superdelegate vote will go very much in line with the popular vote in the United States.”
Baldwin added that only Sanders could decide his campaign’s future if he performs poorly in New York’s primary Tuesday.
“I will certainly leave that decision, as it must be, to Bernie Sanders,” she said. “I think that he has contributed something very important to this campaign cycle.
“At some point we start the process of unifying,” she added. “[Democrats] are all at our core about helping the middle class achieve the American dream [and] helping those who are low income and working every day to be able to get ahead.
“I want to see our candidates come around that. It’s going to be Bernie’s decision. I expect he’s going to carry it on for some time.”
Clinton leads Sanders by roughly 13 points in New York, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. That gap is much more narrow nationwide, however, with Sanders trailing her by just over 1 percentage point.
Clinton has won 1,758 delegates, comprised of 1,289 pledged delegates and 469 superdelegates who can change their support at any time.
Sanders has 1,076 delegates, including 1,045 pledged delegates and 31 superdelegates. At least 2,382 delegates are needed for securing the Democratic presidential nomination.