A closer analysis of the Clinton/Sanders delegate race so far shows that Hillary Clinton is in trouble outside the Deep South. Despite her strong showing in those eight states, particularly among Black voters, that part of the country never votes to send a Democrat to the White House in the fall--even when that Democrat was Barack Obama.

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An analysis of Hillary Clinton's vote totals and delegate counts to date do not bode well for her in November if she is the Democratic Party nominee. And she knows it.

That's why Bernie Sanders' surprising (to them) win in Michigan has the Clinton camp worried. It points to a trend that the Clinton camp does not want anyone to notice.

At this point in time (March 11), Bernie Sanders has won eight states outright to Hillary Clinton's nine. They have basically tied in four others:

Iowa caucus, Clinton by roughly 355 votes.

Nevada caucus, Clinton by roughly 8,000 votes.

Massachusetts, Clinton by 17,064 votes out of 1.2 million cast, 1.4% difference.

Michigan, Sanders by 19,437 out of 1.2 million cast, 1.64% difference.

(Hillary also won American Samoa, where she got 162 out of the 237 total votes tabulated.)

Hillary Clinton has seen her largest delegate gains to date in the Deep South (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas). She touts her support from the Black community in those states as a sign of her "electability."

The problem is that Hillary Clinton knows that her path to the White House does not include winning any of those Deep South states in November. These eight states, all of them, will go Red (Republican) in November, regardless of which Democrat and which Republican are on the ballot.

While the Democrats in those states may support her, the demographics show the Republican vote will overwhelm any candidate the Democrats put forward. Check the record: All those enthusiastic black voters in those eight states could not pull out a single win for Barack Obama in either of his races in 2008 or 2012.

Fact: No Electoral College votes out of the Deep South will be cast for a Democrat in November.

So, how does that fact change the analysis of the race going forward?

Dramatically, as it turns out.

The trend the Clinton camp is worried about is this: Outside the Deep South, what voters in the Blue and Purple states are telling us so far is that they want Bernie Sanders on that November Ballot.

Here are the numbers: Of the 768 pledged (earned) delegates that Hillary has so far garnered, 438 of them are from those eight Deep South states. That leaves Hillary Clinton with 330 pledged delegates in the rest of the states that have voted to date (March 10).

Bernie Sanders' totals for pledged delegates to date are 553 total, of which 178 are from the eight Deep South states that Hillary won. That leaves Bernie Sanders with 375 pledged delegates earned in the Blue and Purple states.

That means that outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders has earned 45 more delegates than Hillary Clinton.

Because the rules for awarding of delegates is sometimes convoluted, a more accurate picture can be seen in the actual vote totals.

Overall, Hillary Clinton proclaims that she is out-voting Bernie Sanders by more than a million and a half votes nationally. And that's true. The actual vote differential, nationally, is 1,639,320 votes in Hillary's favor.

However, the picture changes when you realize that the vote differential in the Deep South states is 1,697,216. Look at those two numbers.

In other words, ALL of vote differential that Clinton proclaims over Sanders can be found in the Deep South states.

In fact, it's worse than that, for Clinton.

In those Blue/Purple states, Bernie Sanders is actually leading Hillary Clinton in raw vote numbers. Of the 4,314,700 votes cast outside the Deep South so far, Hillary Clinton won 2,217,108, while Bernie Sanders won 2,275,004.

So, nationally, Bernie Sanders has won 57,896 more actual votes than Hillary Clinton, outside the Deep South.

Bottom line, outside the Deep South, Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton in both pledged (earned) delegates, and in actual votes cast.

And it is only outside the Deep South that Democrats have a possibility of winning Electoral College votes that actually put a President in the White House.

One other thing that has the Clinton camp worried. That is the proclaimed devotion of the Sanders supporters, as well as their often-blogged distaste for Clinton.

Conventional wisdom is that Democrats will rally around the eventual nominee, regardless of how contentious the primaries might have been. Bernie's supporters will of course vote for Hillary if it is the choice between her and Trump or Cruz.

That, frankly, is not a safe assumption this year. And that is because of the very nature of Sanders supporters. His strengths are with the young, the independent thinkers, and the folks, young and old, who like Sanders' vision of a better, more caring and democratic America. None of these voters hold any allegiance to the Democratic Party. In fact, so many of them have joined the party solely to vote for Bernie Sanders and his vision.

The blogs are filled with Sanders supporters who are stating flatly that they will not vote for Clinton, regardless of her opponent. They see her as Republican-lite and are debating whether to skip the presidential line on the ballot, skip the election entirely, fill in Bernie's name as a write-in (which will not be counted in most states), or look for an alternative. The alternative mentioned most frequently is Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for President, whose views often parallel Bernie Sanders'.

Conversely, I have not heard any suggestion anywhere that Clinton Democrats would refuse to vote for Bernie Sanders in the General Election.

My conclusion? If the Democratic Party wants to win the White House in November, Bernie Sanders on the ballot is the way to make that happen.

Authors Bio:

Writer and political activist Jean Hay Bright is now semi-retired, running an organic farm in Dixmont Maine with her husband David Bright. Her two political books are "Proud to be a Card-Carrying, Flag-Waving, Patriotic American Liberal (1996), and "A Tale of Dirty Tricks: Susan Collins v. Public Record" (2002) about Maine's 1996 U.S. Senate race. In 2006, she was Maine's Democratic candidate who ran against U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe. Her 2003 memoir, "Meanwhile, Next Door to the Good Life," about homesteading next to authors Helen and Scott Nearing, was revised in 2013 to include a chapter on Scott Nearing's FBI file.