Speaking at a rally in San Francisco, Sanders promised supporters he would win in California: “As of today, we have won primaries and caucuses in twenty states across this country”.
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Both Clinton and Sanders are strong LGBT rights supporters, but she has the endorsement of the nation’s largest LGBT group, the Human Rights Campaign.
“According to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment but we still have work to do don’t we?” she said.
However, on Monday night, the AP reported that its count of delegates won in the primary plus “party insiders known as superdelegates” showed that Clinton already has the numbers to win the nomination.
But Clinton’s party rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, was not ready to throw in the towel, insisting the Democratic standardbearer will not be anointed until delegates vote at the party’s national convention in late July.
“He has indicated he wants to spend a lot of time on the campaign trail, so when it’s time to do that, we’ll go out guns ablazing”, White House communications director Jennifer Psaki told the Times.
Sanders tried to quiet Alcindor five times by saying “excuse me” before giving in and allowing her to finish her question.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who met the GOP’s 1,237 delegate requirement last month, is scheduled to host a press conference at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan to discuss the primary results. Barring a very successful take in Tuesday’s states, which could justify a contested convention on Sanders’ part, this November’s general election will officially feature Clinton against Donald Trump.
The Clinton campaign is cautious about declaring victory after Sanders has repeatedly vowed to fight all the way to the party’s convention in July in Philadelphia. Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to be considered for a major party nomination in 1964 when she ran as a Republican. “But the truth is the truth”, Mrs Clinton said at a recent stop near Los Angeles, praising the jobs created under her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and under President Barack Obama.
As she was in 2008, Clinton was viewed as the inevitable nominee – but again faced an unexpected, grassroots challenge from her left, in the unlikely shape of Sanders, a septuagenarian self-declared Democratic socialist.
“So when I hear Donald Trump attacking people based on their immigrant status, their religion, their disabilities, their gender, whatever the reason he attacks people, I am so upset because that is not who we are as Americans”, said Clinton. According to the Associated Press, Ms Clinton has the votes of 571 superdelegates, while Mr Sanders has only 48.
The chairman added that the poor organization was partly a outcome of limited resources, as the local Democratic Party was given roughly $300,000 to run this primary, compared to an estimated $1 million it received for the 2008 primary.
The AP reports that Clinton is now over the necessary 2,383-delegate mark to secure the nomination. She has also won more than 13.6 million votes, compared with almost 10.6 million for Sanders.
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Clinton has pounced on Trump’s business record, character and tendency to use his platform to wage personal grudge matches to as examples of why he is unfit for the presidency. Decisive wins in Southern states on Super Tuesday and a sweep of March 15 contests gave her a significant delegate lead, which became insurmountable by the end of April after big victories in NY and in the Northeast.
