It was a blowout: Bernie Sanders won a whopping 99 percent of counties in the Wisconsin primary

Sanders got more votes in 71 out of Wisconsin's 72 counties. Clinton beat him in just one, and only by 3.7 percent

Published April 6, 2016 6:48PM (EDT)

Bernie Sanders   (AP/Elaine Thompson)
Bernie Sanders (AP/Elaine Thompson)

Bernie Sanders is on fire.

From the very beginning, pundits insisted the self-declared democratic socialist and longtime independent would never have a chance. Yet an enormous grassroots movement has been built behind him, propelling him into place as a serious contender for the presidency.

Sanders has won seven of the last eight primaries — in Utah, Idaho, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, the Democrats Abroad and now Wisconsin, where Sanders had another impressive win Tuesday night.

Before voters took to the polls in Wisconsin, the Sanders campaign shared a graphic showing the enormous margins by which Bernie has won recent primaries.

Let's add Wisconsin to the list!

Posted by Bernie Sanders on Tuesday, April 5, 2016

"The corporate media and establishment keep counting us out, but we keep winning by large margins," Sanders' campaign tweeted triumphantly after exit polls showed he had easily won the primary.

The Vermont senator won Wisconsin by a sizeable margin, earning 56.6 percent of votes to Hillary Clinton's 43.1 percent.

What is perhaps most impressive of all, however, is how much Sanders swept the state's many counties.

Sanders won a whopping 71 of Wisconsin's 72 counties.

In other words, Sanders won 99 percent of Wisconsin's counties.

In many counties, he won by a sizeable 15 to 20 percent margin; in some, he won with as high as a 30 percent gap. The Associated Press created an interactive graph where one can look at the results in the various counties.

Clinton won just a single county in Wisconsin, Milwaukee County, and even then she only won by 3.7 percent.

The winner of the primary in Wisconsin has gone on to become the party's nominee in nearly 94 percent of past elections. The state has been described as the "best in the nations at picking presidential nominees."

Americans, who polls say are overwhelmingly sick of the political status quo, are clearly excited about the prospect of a Sanders presidency.

An ABC exit poll found that two times more Democratic voters said they are excited about what Sanders would do in office than said the same about Clinton.

With lots of momentum after the past several primaries, Sanders is quickly closing the gap with Clinton nationally.

A total of 2,299 delegates have been decided, and Sanders has 45 percent of them.

Sanders says that, if he wins the New York primary, he would likely be the next president. The numbers show he is right.


By Ben Norton

Ben Norton is a politics reporter and staff writer at AlterNet. You can find him on Twitter at @BenjaminNorton.

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Bernie Sanders Hillary Clinton Wisconsin Wisconsin Primary