News Analysis: Sanders' winning streak could hit snag in New York primary

U.S. Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders has been on a winning streak in recent weeks, but he is likely to run into trouble in the New York state primary later this month, experts said.

On Saturday, Sanders clinched the state of Wyoming, beating Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and adding to his winning streak after steamrolling through the states of Hawaii, Alaska and Washington in recent weeks.

But experts said the state of New York may not be so easy for Sanders, a senator from Vermont, to take.

"It's unlikely" that Sanders would win the state of New York, Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, told Xinhua.

"New York is a diverse state with a closed primary. Sanders has done best in states with few minority voters and caucuses or open primaries. Clinton's history in the state will help her there as well," he said.

Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West echoed those thoughts, telling Xinhua that Clinton has the edge in pre-primary polling.

"There is a chance of a Sanders upset, but it would be surprising if she lost," West said of Clinton.

"It is a state she carried comfortably as U.S. Senator and she has a lot of strength in upstate New York," West said.

If Sanders did win the state, Galdieri said that would help continue the perception that his campaign is on a roll.

"But it would really depend on delegate allocation -- Clinton is going into New York with a large lead among pledged delegates and she will likely leave with one, no matter who wins," he said, referring to the system whereby candidates collect a certain number of delegates per each state they win.

"Sanders would need an absolute blowout to really make a dent in Clinton's lead, and there's no sign that that is likely to happen," he said.

West said if Sanders did carry New York, that would be a major problem for Clinton's campaign.

"It would show that the party grassroots has not warmed up to her and they don't trust her to protect working families the way they do him. That kind of outcome would move both campaigns into a much more negative mode as the two would attack each other in a much more serious way. She would pull out all stops in the races after that," he said.

On the other hand, a Sanders loss in the New York would let Clinton regain some control of the campaign narrative, and help her going into the following week's primaries after New York.

Sanders, a self-described socialist, has done particularly well in states with a large proportion of young white voters but has not done well with minorities.

Sanders is particularly popular among millennials, a group that has fared poorly since the 2008 economic crash that sent the economy reeling and from which the U.S. job market has not fully recovered, even seven years later.

Many are university educated but are working part time jobs, feeling the double-whammy not only of lower incomes, but also working in jobs that do not get them any meaningful job experience that they can use to build their long-term marketable skill set.

On top of that, the average millennial is saddled with around 35,000 U.S. dollars in student loan debt, which bars them from investing in real estate, taking away from their long-term financial prospects. Endit