After staying above the campaign fray for months, U.S. President Barack Obama could endorse Hillary Clinton as early as this week as the Democratic presidential nominee, nudging Bernie Sanders to finally abandon his long-fought challenge, U.S. media reported on Monday.
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While Clinton was widely viewed as unlikely to expand her pledged delegates over the threshold of 2,383 next Tuesday, when six of the remaining seven Democratic nomination races will be held, USA cable news, such as CNN, had already predicted that she would clinch the nomination soon with the help of unpledged delegates, or superdelegates.
That count would include superdelegates – party leaders and elected senators, members of Congress and governors who can cast their own vote at the Democratic Party convention in July.
Turning his ire toward the party officials and power brokers around Clinton, Sanders warned that progressives may well decide to stay home in November if they feel wronged or ignored.
The pair of wins provides a boost ahead of California’s Presidential Primary Election on Tuesday, where New Jersey and California are at stake.
Though Clinton did not spend much time campaigning in Puerto Rico, the victory is fraught with symbolism for her campaign. Sanders would likely use that leverage to argue for the Democratic Party to eliminate the role of superdelegates and open all its primary contests to independents, who have been more favorable to Sanders than registered Democrats.
Clinton and Sanders are spending their time campaigning in California, which also will vote Tuesday.
She and Vermont senator Mr Sanders were in a dead heat in California.
Clinton, instead, relied on her traditional strength – her support from the party’s institutional foundation, including unions, black churches, women’s groups, and immigrant advocacy groups.
FILE – In this May 26, 2016, file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Rimrock Auto Arena, in Billings, Mont. The Associated Press puts her less than 30 delegates from that threshold. “And the reason they came early to California is they know something that you know and I know-that if there is large voter turnout on Tuesday, we are going to win California, and we are going to win it big”.
While advisers say he is serious about taking the primary fight to the Democratic convention, he also is mindful of keeping his pledge to keep Trump from winning the presidency.
Clinton has recently focused like a laser on Trump, unleashing blistering attacks on the Republican in recent days, including a well-received foreign policy speech in which she declared his ideas “dangerously incoherent” and warned he was “temperamentally unfit” to lead the world’s more powerful nation.
Gwendolyn Cross, a Riverside activist, said she would vote for Bill Clinton for a third term if term limits allowed it.
Even without the nomination, Sanders can claim ideological victory.
She has scheduled a primary night event in Brooklyn, New York. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) took a moment on Sunday to visit briefly with his grandchildren at the Santa Monica Pier, where they rode the wooden horses on the near-century-old carousel that is still a favorite among local children.
She now moves on to face Trump, whose ascent to the top of the Republican Party few expected.
On Sunday in California she addressed the magnitude of what she is trying to achieve.
“We’re judged by our words and our deeds, not our race, not our ethnicity, not our religion”, she said Saturday in Oxnard, California.
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LOS ANGELES – Hillary Clinton stands poised to claim the Democratic mantle with Tuesday’s primaries including California, overwhelming rival Bernie Sanders and setting up a historic USA presidential election showdown with Republican Donald Trump.
