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 Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming caucuses on Saturday, his seventh
victory over Clinton in the last eight Democratic nominating
contests as the two gear up for a crucial matchup on April 19 in New
York state.
Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is trying to chip away at
Clinton's big lead in the number of delegates needed to secure the
Democratic nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election.
He said on Sunday he believed he could close the gap, and left the
door open for a so-called floor flight at the Democratic National
Convention in Philadelphia in July if neither has won an outright
majority of delegates.
In that case, a system of multiple ballots takes place, governed by
complex rules, with candidates hoping to persuade delegates to vote
for them.
Asked on CNN if she were preparing for such a scenario, Clinton
said, "No, I intend to have the number of delegates that are
required to be nominated."
The former U.S. secretary of state said she was leading Sanders by
2.5 million popular votes and in pledged delegates. "I feel good
about the upcoming contests, and I expect to be the nominee," she
said.
 The specter of a contested convention, a relatively rare event in
recent U.S. politics, looms much larger in the Republican race.
While front-runner Donald Trump has amassed a delegate lead by
winning many state contests, rival Ted Cruz has proved tenacious in
pursuit of every last delegate available by other means. Cruz's
campaign has worked hard in states where the delegate allocation
process is more complex, such as Colorado, where the U.S. senator
from Texas garnered 34 delegates on Saturday.
The Trump campaign has complained about the nominating process,
including in Louisiana, where the New York billionaire Trump won the
vote but split the delegates equally with Cruz.
"It's a crooked system," Trump said at a large rally in Rochester,
New York, on Sunday before saying the process was broken in both
major parties and expressing sympathy for Sanders. "Look at Bernie:
He wins and wins and wins."
Trump said he had warned the Republican National Committee there
would be a "big problem" if he does not become the nominee. "We're
supposed to be a democracy. We're supposed to be: You vote and it
means something."
Paul Manafort, the veteran political strategist Trump hired to
oversee his delegate operation, accused the Cruz campaign of
bullying delegates into backing the senator, something the Trump
campaign planned to protest.
"Well, he's threatening, you go to these county conventions, and you
see the tactics, Gestapo tactics, the scorched-earth tactics,"
Manafort said on NBC's 'Meet the Press'.
Clinton was campaigning in Baltimore on Sunday, where she received
the endorsement of U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings ahead of
Maryland's nominating contest on April 25, where another 95
delegates are at stake.
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The Wyoming results did not change the delegate math for the
Democratic contenders. Each won seven, since delegates are awarded
proportionally based on caucus-goers' support.
Going into Wyoming, Clinton had more than half of the 2,383
delegates needed to win the nomination. Sanders trailed her by 250
pledged delegates, those awarded based on the results of the state
nominating contests.
But Sanders said future contests in the West and on the East Coast
looked favorable to him, including New York, Pennsylvania,
California and Oregon.
"We believe that we have the momentum. We believe that the polling
is showing that we're closing the gap," Sanders said on Sunday on
ABC's "This Week."
Sanders sidestepped questions on whether he was prepared to take the
nomination to a floor fight if Clinton did not win the magic number
of pledged delegates, but he left the possibility open.
"If neither candidate ends up, you know, having the kind of votes
they need, yes, I think there will be some discussion," Sanders said
on CNN's "State of the Union."
An inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into Clinton's use
of a private email server in her Chappaqua, New York, home for her
work as secretary of state continues to cast legal uncertainty over
her campaign.
On Sunday, her former boss, President Barack Obama, said he did not
believe the arrangement harmed national security, despite more than
2,000 of her emails containing classified information, which the
government bans from being handled outside secure,
government-controlled channels.
"There's classified and then there's classified," Obama said in an
interview with Fox News. He also emphasized that the U.S. Justice
Department would investigate impartially, without heed to politics.
(Additional reporting by Clarece Polke and Jonathan Allen; Editing
by Ros Russell and Jonathan Oatis)
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