Van Hollen on the string of contested primaries

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, on NPR’s Morning Edition to gloat over the Democratic win in Mississippi, said that “the political system absorbed the news in advance” of Hillary Clinton’s big West Virginia primary win.

“I’m not sure it’s changed the fundamental dynamic here, it was expected,” the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee suggested, but noting that the race was likely to continue through the end of the contests in June.

On the question of whether the Democratic Party faced massive defections from the loser’s supporters once the contest is settled:

I’ve seen that polling and I know passions are running high in both camps, as they do in primaries. But these are Democratic primary voters and I really believe that once the nomination is clinched by one candidate or the other, the supporters of the other will come on board, assuming—and this is the key—that whoever does not win the nomination enthusiastically supports the nominee. It can’t just be lip service. It can’t be a one-day endorsement; it has to be a concerted effort.

Van Hollen knows a thing or too about contentious primaries. He navigated a course from a rough primary win over the Party’s favored candidate in September 2002 onto defeating Rep. Connie Morrella that November.