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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In the Democratic field this election cycle, the 714 superdelegates, unpledged Democratic Party leaders who are free to support any candidate, can make their final decision at the national convention in July.
She has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. When superdelegates are included, her lead over Sanders is 2,360 to 1,567, according to the AP survey.
The speech was praised by Democrats who said it could bolster Clinton’s efforts to show she could effectively take on Trump in the general election.
“This is an important milestone, but there are six states that are voting Tuesday, with millions of people heading to the polls, and Hillary Clinton is working to earn every vote”, her campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.
But Obama’s plans suggest he, as the putative head of the party, is eager to ratify the choice of Clinton as nominee and head off any attempt by Sanders to drag the fight all the way to the Democratic nominating convention in July, as Sanders has threatened to do. We’re going to do everything we can to reach out to appeal to his supporters, to appeal to his (Sanders) campaign and to him directly.
Hillary Clinton is on the cusp of declaring victory as the Democratic nominee after a long and protracted battle with Bernie Sanders.
Clinton’s rise to presumptive nominee arrived almost eight years to the day after she conceded her first White House campaign to Barack Obama.
When Clinton launched her campaign last April, she did so largely unopposed, having scared off more formidable challengers by locking down much of the party’s organizational and fundraising infrastructure.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, said Trump would be unsafe if left in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, arguing he could use them if offended because he has “thin skin”. Another has ties not only to Sanders but to the broader interests of a Democratic Party pining to beat back the challenge from Republican Donald Trump and make gains in congressional elections. Clinton told an enthusiastic crowd at Greater St. Paul Baptist Church in Oakland the country is “getting indifferent to the great toll of gun violence”, while Sanders made a series of stops in Los Angeles before an evening rally in San Diego.
Despite his losses in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this weekend, Sanders still shows no sign of backing down.
“We are on the brink of an historic, unprecedented moment”, Mrs Clinton said campaigning in California on Monday night, as reports emerged that she had secured enough delegates.
The core of the Sanders argument is that superdelegates should not be counted in delegate estimates until they cast their ballots on the convention floor.
Abramowitz predicts Sanders, an independent US zenator from Vermont, will win Montana because it’s “a state with a large share of independents”, while Clinton will have a “fairly comfortable win” in New Jersey, “a state with a much smaller share of independents and a substantial African-American electorate”.
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Democrats say that if Clinton is able to rally the coalition of young, minority voters and suburban women that twice propelled Obama to the White House, she should be able to defeat Trump.
