Clinton aide: Big Tuesday will make lead ‘insurmountable’

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s top pollster predicted that a strong night on Tuesday will likely make her lead over rival Bernie Sanders “insurmountable.”

{mosads}”I think, after tonight, you’ve got almost 400 delegates who have come off the playing field. That will make it insurmountable because Sen. Sanders won’t have the real estate to catch up given the size of our lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote,” Joel Benenson said Tuesday on MSNBC. 

Benenson demurred when asked if Sanders should drop out of the primary fight, arguing the decision should be made by the Vermont senator. But, he added, the “most important thing is we unite this party when it’s clear who the nominee is.” 

Clinton came into Tuesday with a polling lead in all five of the states holding primaries — Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Rhode Island. If those trends hold, she’ll likely add even more to her delegate lead. 

She currently leads Sanders by about 270 delegates, a margin that will likely drop a bit when Sanders’s big delegate slate in Washington is finally allocated. But with few states left on the calendar, MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki agreed with the Clinton camp’s assessment. 

“They are saying the math looks good for them and are right,” Kornacki said Tuesday night on the network’s coverage of the election results.