Clinton can expect a good night tonight. Polls show her leading in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut. Sanders has a very small lead in Rhode Island, while Delaware hasn’t had enough polling to be easy to predict. So she can look forward to winning at least three states and might even pull off a clean sweep of all five. More importantly, Clinton’s campaign of attrition is paying off. While it is not mathematically impossible for Sanders to win the nomination, he has to win a prohibitively large percentage of the remaining delegates: more than 60 percent, according to Nate Silver’s calculations.
The real question coming out of tonight won’t be who wins, which seems foregone, but rather how do both candidates pivot to the general. As the presumptive nominee, Clinton has to unify the party and bring Sanders supporters, a large minority within the party, on board. Sanders for his part has to figure out how to go from being an insurgent to being a team player. The wounds of a sometimes harsh campaign might be too fresh for these changes to be made immediately, but that’s where the candidates are heading.