Here’s Why Clinton Should Still Be Worried About Sanders

For a candidate who is constantly told he has no chance of winning the Democratic Party nomination for president, Bernie Sanders has certainly made things interesting in this particular election cycle. Just as the Republican contest has been largely determined, things seem to be heating up on the Democratic side, and the California primary next month will be pivotal. The danger in Clinton losing California—or even in winning by a small margin—is that it reinforces the perception that she is a weak candidate, not particularly loved by rank-and-file Democrats, and vulnerable, especially in the event of a worst-case scenario with the FBI email investigation.

The need to continue a primary contest against someone with little to no chance of being nominated while also fending off increasingly heated rhetoric from Sanders supporters—who she will badly need in the general election—has to be of deep concern to Hillary Clinton and her campaign. The nomination fight still has more than two weeks to go, culminating in California on June 7, a race she should win, given support from the black and Hispanic community. But it is clearly not a contest she can take for granted. A loss in California (she should sweep the other June 7 primaries, including New Jersey), or a narrow win like Kentucky, would be debilitating, and raise even more questions about her qualities as a candidate—questions that have a tendency to take on a life of their own. But barring something really unexpected coming out of the FBI investigation, she has the nomination in hand, but has to be concerned about what this is doing to her general election prospects.

None of this means Sanders can win the nomination. The conventional wisdom, which in this case is almost certainly correct, is that it would take an incredible bombshell to thwart Clinton’s long, painful slog to the nomination. At this point, the only thing on the horizon that would qualify would be an indictment over her use of a private email account for conducting confidential business while holding the job of U.S. secretary of state. Yet few observers believe this fate awaits her, as the FBI investigation seems to be moving into its final phase. Clinton probably needs to worry more about the political implications of the FBI investigation anyway, as opposed to the legal implications.

And assuming that an indictment of Clinton herself is off the table, an outcome that would almost certainly render her candidacy unviable, she probably needs to worry more about possible legal action being taken against one or more aides involved in the controversy, or what is most likely, the lingering doubts that will remain in the minds of much of the electorate. Even if no action is taken against anyone, the investigation reinforces the sense that Clinton is a fundamentally ethically challenged candidate who, if elected, will be constantly entangled in various controversies over the course of her presidency.

While she might bemoan her fate of having to ward off a pesky challenger to her left, like Sanders, Clinton should count herself extraordinarily fortunate that she did not have a more viable challenger like Elizabeth Warren. A challenge from Warren might well have been a reprise of 2008, with Warren playing the role of Barack Obama. Such a contest would likely have ended the same way as in 2008, with Warren winning a vast millennial following, but also able to gain support from establishment Democrats in a way that Sanders has been unable to achieve.

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http://fortune.com/2016/05/24/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-2016-presidential-election/