Hillary Clinton’s campaign had long rested the assumption that she should have already won the Democratic presidential nomination by now on her strength among Democratic voters in the South. Her vaunted “firewall” of support, buttressed by minority Democratic voters who remain supportive of President Barack Obama, did serve Clinton well in February and March. What she may not have accounted for, however, is that Sanders could survive past her “firewall” states. Even among African-American Democratic primary voters, opposition to Sanders is nowhere near as strong elsewhere in the country as it has been in the South.

In Michigan, where Sanders pulled off an upset victory on March 8, Clinton won just two-thirds of the African-American primary vote – which made up a dramatic 21 percent of the overall electorate. If Sanders had not won the support of an impressive 28 percent of black Democratic voters, he would have lost the state (which he won by just half a percent of the overall vote). The same phenomenon was evident in Wisconsin, where Sanders beat Clinton by a dramatic 13 points. While they made up a much smaller portion of the overall Democratic primary electorate in the Badger State (10 percent), Sanders was able to win the backing of 31 percent of African-American voters. Even despite his signature criticisms of Barack Obama’s performance in office from the president’s left, Sanders remains an appealing figure for Northern African-American voters.

Now, does this translate into the Northeast? It might. A CBS News/YouGov survey of the Empire State’s Democratic voters ahead of the critical New York primary showed Clinton beating Sanders by 10 points (53 to 43 percent). That poll also had Clinton winning the support of just 65 percent of African-American voters while 31 percent backed Sanders. Those findings are virtually identical to what Quinnipiac University pollsters discovered at the end of last month. It is reasonable to assume that Sanders could, with the help of accumulated momentum and some key ad buys in the New York City media market, make the New York primary a competitive race. Much to the consternation of narrative-weavers in the commentary class, Hillary Clinton can claim New York as her home state after winning two statewide races for federal office there. A loss, or even an unexpectedly narrow win for Clinton, would send panic shooting throughout the Democratic ranks and might shake a few of the former first lady’s super delegates loose. That is, it would if Bernie Sanders could just keep his mouth shut.

Let’s be clear: The coverage of Bernie Sanders’ supposed week of “gaffes” is largely a fabrication and is entirely motivated by Team Clinton’s apprehension. Clinton allies have mocked Sanders for an interview he gave to the New York Daily News in which he demonstrated a general lack of granular policy knowledge to support his proposals for tighter regulations on Wall Street. Clinton allies have feigned great effrontery over that same interview, in which Sanders said he would support a new “assault weapons ban” but would not subvert the law by supporting legislation that would allow victims of gun crime to sue gun manufacturers. Most gallingly, Clinton allies succumbed to a case of the vapors when Sanders had the audacity to contend that Hillary Clinton was not “qualified” to be the President of the United States as a result of her 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq War. The former secretary of state’s supporters do their candidate no favors when they dramatically overreact to these defensible if clumsy comments. Instead, they demonstrate that their candidate believes herself to be entitled to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, and she resents having to work for it.

That said, Sanders did step on a land mine this week; one that he should have been able to see from miles away. In their haste to make the Vermont senator pay for his perfectly legitimate and reasonable contention that gun manufacturers should not be liable for the criminal misuse of their lawful-sold product, anti-gun rights activists heaped scorn and derision upon Sanders that he did not deserve. Rather than endure the wrath of gun control activists with stoicism, Sanders played directly into their hands. When CBS reporter Nancy Cordes informed Sanders that Erica Smegielski, a 30-year-old Hillary Clinton supporter and the daughter of a victim of the Newtown massacre, demanded from Sanders an apology for his position on gun manufacturers, Sanders refused. Instead, he demanded an apology from Clinton for playing a role in the deaths of those who died amid combat and turmoil in Iraq following the 2003 coalition invasion.

In a sense, Sanders has a point. Clinton is about as responsible for the deaths of coalition forces and civilians in Iraq as Bushmaster is for those at Sandy Hook Elementary. But this is not a premise upon which reasoned debate is possible or even the objective. If Sanders were a skillful campaigner, he’d know that the raw emotionalism couldn’t be defused with legalistic pronouncements about appropriately circumspect liability laws. What gun control activists want isn’t a policy debate; they want enemies. Foolishly, Sanders gave them one.

In that moment, the Vermont senator handed Clinton the wedge with which she can cleave some weakly committed Sanders voters away from their candidate and ensure that a state like New York – not to mention the rest of Southern New England – does not become competitive. If Clinton sweeps the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic at the end of the month, that’s the whole ballgame.

The story of the Democratic race in 2016 is not how remarkable a politician Bernie Sanders is. The story of this cycle on the Democratic side is how remarkably weak Hillary Clinton is as her party’s frontrunner. If she had faced a reasonably competent liberal challenger, just imagine what might have been.