Voting in Tuesday’s presidential contest comes a day after Clinton captured enough commitments from delegates to become the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, according to an Associated Press count.
Advertisement
A former senator and US secretary of state, Clinton would be the first woman to ever be the presidential candidate of a major political party in the country’s history.
Even over the weekend, as victories in primaries in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands brought her tantalizingly close to the delegates needed to secure the nomination, Clinton did not address the victories at events on either day. In one key metric, however, Bernie Sanders blows away not just Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, but even presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Democrats are voting in six states on Tuesday, headlined by California, the nation’s largest state, offering 475 pledged delegates, while Mrs Clinton, a former NY senator, is heavily favoured in New Jersey primary, which has 142 pledged delegates.
Clinton, who has amassed about 3 million more votes than Sanders in the nominating competition and a lead of about 300 pledged delegates, has argued that superdelegates – senior party officials not bound to voting results in any state – would not abandon her en masse, and there did not appear to be any such movement afoot.
Obama is eager to start campaigning, but the White House said he wanted to give voters an opportunity to cast ballots before weighing in on the Democratic race.
Hillary Clinton won the race over Bernie Sanders.
“I like what Bernie Sanders says and I agree with nearly everything that he says”, Acosta said.
Superdelegates, the Democratic party leaders who are allowed to place their vote for either candidate, has overwhelmingly swung Clinton’s way.
Hillary Clinton will square off against Donald Trump in the November 8 USA presidential election.
The Vermont senator’s tone was more subdued Monday than over the weekend, when he said the Democratic convention would be contested if no one wins the nomination based on delegates awarded in the primaries and caucuses. With superdelegates, Clinton has 2,357 delegates to Sanders’ 1,556 delegates. None of the delegates do-pledged or super.
Asked Monday whether an Obama endorsement of Clinton would affect his campaign, Sanders deflected, saying he was being asked to speculate before an important primary in California.
But the outcome in California, the last and largest state to vote, could help shape whether Clinton will gain traction in her efforts to unify the party behind her. The former secretary of state will then head to the Greek Theatre for a concert later in the evening.
“So if Hillary Clinton runs for president, is your point that it is sexist for any man to oppose her?” he added.
“I think that could be a big story coming out of the election”, Mitchell said in an email. “My job in the next 24 hours is to win California”.
“Is that a serious question?” he asked the female reporter. “I believe that I am the stronger candidate”.
Advertisement
“We’re going to keep fighting until the last vote is counted”, said Kristen Elliott, a supporter from San Francisco who attended the rally.
