CNN's Jeff Zeleny reminded viewers Friday that the Hillary Clinton campaign used to be confident it would wrap up the Democratic nomination by March, but with the calendar flipping to April, her battle with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) is "hotter than ever."
"After Clinton lost in New Hampshire, her campaign urged supporters not to worry, because the nomination wouldn't be won in February. It would be all but sealed in March," Zeleny said. "But as the calendar turns to April today, the race is hotter than ever."
Clinton "just can't shake Bernie Sanders," Zeleny said, reporting on the increasingly bitter rhetoric between the two campaigns this week. Clinton blew up at a Greenpeace activist Thursday who suggested she took money from fossil fuel companies, yelling that she was "so sick" of the Sanders campaign "lying" about her.
At the root of the tension, Zeleny said, was the "length of the race," given that the Clinton campaign once assumed the contest would be "all but over by now."
Indeed, campaign manager Robby Mook released a memo in the wake of Clinton's blowout loss to Sanders in New Hampshire asserting that the nomination would "very likely be won in March." Sanders, while trailing in the delegate count, is not dead yet after scoring three lopsided wins last weekend in Washington, Hawaii, and Alaska.
He has also moved ahead in Wisconsin, and Zeleny reported a senior Clinton advisor told him the campaign felt Wisconsin was "out of reach." Clinton has appeared to signal defeat thereby placing all her focus on campaigning in New York, even though the Wisconsin primary is on Tuesday.
Clinton and Sanders also traded barbs about abortion when the former suggested Sanders didn't properly denounce GOP frontrunner Donald Trump's "punishment" remarks. The far-left Sanders retorted he had a 100 percent pro-choice record and that Clinton took his remarks out of context.