Sanders extends win streak in Wyoming

by Jessie Hellmann - 04/09/16 4:40 PM ET

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has won the Wyoming caucuses, giving him seven wins in the last eight contests.

Sanders won nearly 56 percent of the vote, but he and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton will split the state’s 14 delegates down the middle.

Even so, the win is another jolt of momentum for the Vermont senator heading into the critical New York primary on April 19.

{mosads}Both campaigns paid little attention to Wyoming. Sanders held a rally there Tuesday. Clinton did not go to the state, but her husband, former President Bill Clinton, did.

Sanders’s victory follows rising tensions between the two candidates after he questioned Clinton’s qualifications to run for president, a remark that snowballed into a weeklong dispute.

He said Wednesday that her super-PAC support, Iraq War vote and support of trade agreements made her unqualified. The campaign doubled down a day later, arguing that Clinton and her allies had insinuated that Sanders himself wasn’t qualified to run, but she brushed aside those accusations.

The argument appeared to die down Friday when Sanders said that “of course” Clinton is qualified.

Entering Saturday, Clinton led the race with 1,280 pledged delegates to Sanders’s 1,030, according to The Associated Press.

In addition, Clinton has 469 superdelegates to Sanders’s 31.

Tags Bernie Sanders Bill Clinton Hillary Clinton Wyoming