Some Hillary Clinton backers are reportedly miffed by rival Sen. Bernie Sanders's threat to take the Democratic presidential nomination contest to a floor fight at the party's convention in July.
"At this late stage in the primary, he should stop trying to rile up his people and start to bring everyone together," one unnamed supporter tells
The Hill.
"That’s what Hillary did for [then-Sen. Barack] Obama. He needs to set an example and start bringing his people over if he cares about defeating [Donald] Trump in the general election."
Her concession to Obama that June "was the adult thing to do and ended up helping the party," an second unnamed backer tells The Hill. "But even if he doesn’t, we’re in a position where it really doesn’t matter much what he does."
"Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee, and it’s not going to be a contested convention, so whatever he’s saying is more of a nuisance than something that will impact us in the long run," that source tells The Hill. "It’s up to him now how he wants people to remember whether he positively or negatively impacted the race."
Clinton leads by more than 300 unpledged delegates, with about 1,000 still up for grabs, but because Democrats award delegates proportionately, the Vermont lawmaker wouldn't likely be able to make up enough ground before the Philadelphia convention, The Hill reports.
But Sanders
has vowed to pressure super delegates to switch their allegiance, declaring "The convention will be a contested contest."
But if he tries, he'll fail, according to Mo Elleithee, who worked on Clinton's 2008 campaign and was a director for the Democratic National Committee.
"If his plan is to turn the convention into a messy floor fight, then he’s running head-first into brick wall," Elleithee tells The Hill. "He might make the convention loud and noisy, but he’s not going to make it messy. Hillary Clinton is going to win. She’s going to win easily, and I don’t think Sanders wants to do anything that will embolden Donald Trump. At the end of the day, he’s not going to want to be the skunk at the garden party."