Hillary Clinton may have won the Democratic presidential nomination even before the polls close Tuesday in California, three time zones to the west of New Jersey. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders had about one-third.
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It may be far-fetched, but after her lopsided victory over Bernie Sanders on Saturday in the U.S. Virgin Islands – she garnered all seven of the seven pledged delegates at stake – Puerto Rico could put Clinton over the top. An Associated Press count of superdelegates shows Clinton leading 547 to 46. Sanders won 61.6 percent of the vote in Minnesota’s March 1 contest to 38.4 percent for Clinton.
On Tuesday, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota will vote.
Campaigning on the island last month, Sanders promised to fight against “vulture funds” on Wall Street that he said would profit from the fiscal crisis. They disagree over legislation in Congress to restructure the island’s massive debt. Clinton backed the bill a couple of weeks ago. She recalled a summer interning at an Oakland law firm in 1971 when she and Bill Clinton were first dating, along with some “really wonderful memories”. “And any such entity includes members that will act in the best interest of Puerto Ricans”.
Mrs Clinton also attacked Mr Trump on immigration at a rally in Oxnard, a city of about 200,000 located northwest of Los Angeles that is nearly 75 percent Hispanic.
The Virgin Islands is one of five USA territories that casts votes in primaries and caucuses to decide the nominee, even though those residents aren’t eligible to vote in November.
The win for Clinton inches her closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, which she is expected to capture in the next few days. “They will be dependent on superdelegates”. He would have to stage a huge upset on June 7 to get enough delegates to carry big momentum into the Democratic National Convention. In a last-ditch bid to win the nomination, he is trying to persuade scores of superdelegates who support Clinton to swing his way. He argues that they could still switch their support, though there has been no evidence of any shift coming. “Hillary Clinton will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to win the Democratic nomination at the end of the nominating process on June 14”. “For her campaign, it is important to show strength among younger voters as well, who have tended to be more enthusiastic about Sanders”.
“In terms of delegate math I think there is some confusion in the media”, Sanders said.
Mrs Clinton now has 1,776 delegates to Mr Sanders’ 1,501, based on primaries and caucuses.
Recalling her own campaign against Obama in 2008, Clinton’s team has avoided urging Sanders to leave the race.
He said Saturday that the Democratic convention would be contested.
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Sanders also seemed to go out of his way today to renew his sharp criticism of Clinton for voting as a U.S. senator in 2002 to support the invasion of Iraq and then encouraging President Obama to support the toppling Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi while she was secretary of state – a move that destabilized Libya and paved the way for infiltration by terrorists hostile to the U.S. But when pressed to say whether he would work with Clinton to defeat Trump regardless of the outcome of the Democratic primary battle, Sanders said simply, “Yes”.
