Despite daunting delegate math, top advisers to Bernie Sanders said Wednesday morning that the Vermont senator would fight on until the summer — not to mount a quixotic “message” campaign, but with a plan to overtake Hillary Clinton....

Sanders won four of 11 Democratic nominating contests on Super Tuesday. Clinton claimed victory in the others, building on her wins in Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada, and putting her on an increasingly clear path to the nomination....

“We shot for five. We got 4.9,” Weaver told reporters who crowded into Sanders’ Burlington campaign headquarters for a post-Super Tuesday briefing. “After the disappointment in South Carolina, I think what this campaign has demonstrated is that it still has the momentum. We are moving forward for the nomination.”

Weaver and Devine said they had expected to win as few as 300 delegates on Tuesday, which they said was packed with states especially favorable to Clinton based on demographics and electoral history. Sanders won 335 delegates by their count.