CNN predicted that Clinton will win enough delegates to win the nomination in the coming days. Eight years ago, with the presidential nomination slipping from her grasp, she rolled through the streets of San Juan on the back of a flat-bed truck, wooing voters to a soundtrack of blasting Latin music.
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Now she is the one facing an extraordinary push by a challenger. When including superdelegates, her lead over Sanders is significant – 2,355 to 1,562. “I’m for Hillary, girl”, 83-year-old Candida Dones told Associated Press as she cast her vote. She wears the trousers.
Clinton now has 1,776 delegates to Sanders’ 1,501, based on primaries and caucuses.
Roughly half of voters surveyed – 49% in both states – say they are “scared” watching the Donald Trump presidential campaign, the most common emotion expressed.
Sanders shook hands and stopped for photos during a stroll of more than an hour Sunday along the shops, restaurants and amusement park rides of the California landmark.
“Sorry to disturb your brunch”, Sanders said at Hamburger Mary’s, taking the microphone during their “drag brunch” as disco lights swirled inside.
A loss to Sanders in California would not derail Clinton’s path to the nomination, but it could galvanise Sanders and his supporters to carry their insurgency all the way to the party’s nominating convention in July.
Hillary Clinton, about to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, rallied with supporters Saturday in this California farmtown. In California, Clinton leads Trump 48% to 33% among likely general election voters, while Sanders leads 55% to 32%.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in an interview earlier this week that “sometimes you just have to give up”, a sign of what could come next.
Sixty pledged delegates are at stake in Puerto Rico.
Both Sanders and Clinton have pledged to help as the island’s government tries to restructure $70 billion worth of public debt that the governor has said is unpayable. Sanders told diners he hopes everyone will make clear with their votes on Tuesday that the time for establishment politics and establishment economics has passed.
Still, asked if he’d work to defeat Donald Trump in the fall no matter who is the Democratic nominee, Sanders said: “Yes”.
Her total delegate haul includes superdelegates, party officials who are unbound and can switch their support at any time.
One aide described Clinton as being initially “reluctant” to go on the attack, worrying as many of her supporters do, that when she goes on the offense, it is often interpreted as overly negative. An Associated Press count of superdelegates shows Clinton leading 547 to 46. He had remained uncommitted, but said Sunday he will support Clinton.
Over the weekend, Clinton and Trump continued to snarl at each other from afar, with Clinton continuing to make the case that Trump lacks the “temperament” to be commander in chief and Trump insisting that Clinton is “guilty as hell” of violating federal rules against using private email servers to transmit sensitive documents, and that she “has to go to jail”.
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“It is extremely unlikely that Secretary Clinton will have the requisite number of pledged delegates to claim victory on Tuesday night”, Sanders said.
