Hillary Clinton will become the first woman to top a presidential ticket after securing enough commitments Monday from delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, The Associated Press and NBC News reported.
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The Vermont senator’s tone was more subdued after saying over the weekend that the Democratic convention would be contested if no one wins the nomination based exclusively on delegates awarded in the primaries and caucuses. The development comes on the eve of voting in California and five other states.
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 239-year history. Bernie Sanders. He mobilized millions with a fervently liberal message and his insurgent candidacy revealed a deep level of national frustration with politics as usual, even among Democrats who have controlled the White House since 2009.
He’s planning an election night party in Santa Monica, while Clinton is holding her Super Tuesday rally in Brooklyn at the site where she last debated Sanders.
Still, although Sanders lags well behind in delegates needed to win the nomination, he said on Monday he would make his case to so-called superdelegates who are not required to vote for a particular candidate at the convention.
Clinton has always been the front-runner to be the Democratic nominee in the November 8 election but has faced an unexpectedly tough fight against Sanders, a United States senator from Vermont who has attacked her from the left.
Clinton again set her targets not on her Democratic rival, but rather on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. In a statement, his spokesman Michael Briggs said, “Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump”.
The shift in support comes as Clinton steps up her attacks on the real estate mogul’s policy positions, and as Trump fends off criticisms of his eponymous university and the pace at which he doled out money that he raised for USA veterans. With about two-thirds of the votes counted, Clinton led Sanders 56 percent to 43 percent, avoiding what would have been an embarrassing loss in America’s most populous state.
Clinton, a former NY senator, is heavily favored in Tuesday’s New Jersey primary and winning a share of the state’s 142 pledged delegates would likely put her over the top.
According to the latest counts, Clinton has 1,809 pledged delegates to Sanders’ 1,520 delegates. Following the results in Puerto Rico, it is no longer possible for Sanders to reach the 2,383 needed to win the nomination based on the remaining available pledged delegates and uncommitted superdelegates.
Clinton now must try to unify the party and win over Sanders supporters, who booed lustily in California when Sanders congratulated her on her victories on Tuesday. She won 29 primaries and caucuses to his 21. She leads Sanders by more than 3 million cast votes.
“I stand firmly with Muslim American communities in rejection of the voices that seek to divide us or limit our religious freedoms or civil rights”, Obama wrote, adding later: “We will continue to welcome immigrants and refugees into our nation, including those who are Muslim”. “So it is time to judge Donald Trump by his words and his deeds”.
Democratic Party elites are lined up squarely behind Clinton, including most likely Obama, who may endorse his former secretary of state as early as this week.
On Wednesday, the day after Clinton is expected to secure their party’s nomination, Obama is scheduled to raise campaign cash for Democrats in New York City, including at a $10,000-and-up fundraiser at the home of Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer and wife Katherine Sailer.
They have become increasingly resistant in recent months, with fewer than half saying they would vote for her if she becomes the party’s nominee, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May. I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about my discussions with the President. But she also said she looks “forward to campaigning with the president and everybody else”.
A Sanders victory there could embolden his supporters to urge him to wage a fractious convention fight.
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“The best way to end the threat he presents to our country and the world is to defeat him starting tomorrow in the California primary”, Clinton said at a rally in Lynwood.
