Bernie Sanders in Tuesday’s Democratic primary in California, though she boasts an overwhelming lead in delegates and superdelegates nationally and is expected to clinch the nomination Tuesday with votes in other states before California’s results come in.
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But Ms Clinton had already won New Jersey, South Dakota and New Mexico, according to USA networks, and was leading Mr Sanders by a substantial margin in California.
“Sanders and hope he will join me in that because we have got to be unified going into the convention and coming out of the convention to take on Donald Trump”.
“I am pretty good at arithmetic and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight”, he said.
“We’re going to fight hard for every single vote”, Mrs Clinton declared.
Clinton said she is “excited about that but not letting myself focus on” becoming the first female presidential nominee of a major party.
A video that played prior to her speech spliced images of pivotal moments in the fight for women’s equality in the USA – from the suffragettes and the women’s liberation movement – with shots of her climbing stairs to address supporters. In the hypothetical matchup between Clinton and the presumptive GOP nominee, Donald Trump, less than half of them now say they will support Clinton, while one in four favor Trump. But Sanders, a democratic socialist USA senator from Vermont, has vowed to stay in until July’s party convention that formally picks the nominee, defying growing pressure from party leaders to exit the race.
Although Clinton has the number of delegates needed to win the nomination, it remains unclear whether she will seal the deal on a high note, with a victory in California, or whether a Sanders win in the state would make Obama’s endorsement appear more meddlesome.
Trump has all but sealed the Republican nod after a string of big wins in state nominating contests forced his party rivals to drop out, while Clinton is still fending off a long-shot bid for the Democratic spot on the ballot by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Sanders, a US senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, has commanded huge crowds spilling out of parks and stadiums and has been particularly bolstered by younger voters angered by widening economic inequality with his promise of a “political revolution”.
Steven Acosta, a 47-year-old teacher living in Los Angeles, voted for Clinton on Tuesday, saying that was partly because he believed she stood a better chance of winning in November. “Sanders for energizing millions of Americans with his commitment to issues like fighting economic inequality and special interests’ influence on our politics”, Earnest said.
But Michael Briggs, Sanders’ spokesman, dismissed the AP and NBC tallies.
Sanders has previously said that Clinton should not be deemed the party’s nominee because she would be relying on superdelegates – party officials and elected leaders – who do not actually vote until the Democratic National Convention.
Mrs Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses.
The Sanders’ campaign has said it can still persuade superdelegates to switch to him, although in practice superdelegates who have announced their intentions are unlikely to change their minds.
Weaver refused when pressed during an interview on CNN to answer questions about how their argument requires asking delegates to defy the will of the voters.
“I don’t think it is sexist”, he said.
Obama is eager to hit the campaign trail, according to several aides, and has already weighed in multiple times on the race to succeed him. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that Obama would not endorse until after he meets with Sanders on Thursday.
With Hillary Clinton set on Tuesday to secure enough delegates and become the presumptive Democratic nominee, the White House is signaling that Obama’s full endorsement could come as early as this week. But he’s held rallies across California and New Mexico in recent weeks to try to drive up his delegate total, open new lines of attack against Clinton and stay in the media spotlight.
The Clinton campaign has pointed to criticism from leaders in Trump’s Republican Party to make this case. “But if he loses California and New Jersey, he should absolutely concede and formally, actively work for Hillary. If he splits the two states, well then it is an interesting call”.
But the Sanders approach is a long shot not just because most superdelegates prefer Clinton.
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Clinton will now seek to make progress on both the Sanders and Trump fronts, using her own loss in 2008 to connect with Sanders’ backers. That was down from 50 percent in April, and 52 percent in March.
