Earlier on Monday, Clinton called for party unity, suggesting it was time for Sanders, a US senator from Vermont, to abandon his hard-fought challenge, as six states hold nominating contests on Tuesday when she expects to clinch the nomination.
Advertisement
Hillary Clinton has secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nomination, according to US media outlets, but her campaign urged supporters to get to the polls on Tuesday to avoid a loss to Bernie Sanders in California as she seeks to unite the party.
While she largely played down her gender in her first run, she has often wrapped her second presidential campaign in specific appeals to women, arguing that being a woman in the White House would be the ultimate outsider credential. “Let me just talk to you after the primary here in California where we hope to win”.
“It presents some operational challenges like long lines like we had yesterday”, he said.
Nevertheless, Bernie Sanders is right that Hillary Clinton will not officially be the Democratic Party’s nominee until she is declared the nominee at the convention.
“It’s not over until it’s over, and tomorrow is a really important day, particularly here in California”, she added.
Clinton told reporters in California that Tuesday marks eight years from the day she withdrew from the 2008 White House race, endorsing Barack Obama after a bitter rivalry. He has urged superdelegates to shift their support from Clinton and predicted a contested Democratic National Convention in July. He has commanded huge crowds in parks and stadiums, galvanizing younger voters with his promises to address economic inequality. Some polls are showing Clinton and Sanders neck-and-neck in the state. She has led a more pragmatic campaign, focused on building on Obama’s policies.
She reached the required 2,383 delegates on Monday, according to an Associated Press count.
Clinton now has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses; Sanders has 1,521.
Although she has won more votes and earned the support of more delegates to the Democratic National Convention in July, she has shied away from calling on Sanders to drop out of the contest.
In practice, superdelegates who have announced their intention are unlikely to change their mind.
Polls show a tight race in California, a state that Clinton and Sanders each desperately want to win.
“But we still have work to do, don’t we?”
Michael Briggs, Sanders’ spokesman, dismissed the AP and NBC tallies.
“Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald TrumpDonald TrumpCalif”.
But as a final wave of voters head to the polls in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota Tuesday and with Clinton apparently clinching a majority of delegate votes, it may be too late for Sanders’ supporters to make a difference at the ballot box.
“I am sure everybody has an idea of how they can make it better, but we were working with limited resources”, he said. That was down from 50 percent in April, and 52 percent in March.
“My problem is that the process today has allowed Secretary Clinton to get the support of over 400 superdelegates before any other Democratic candidate was in the race”, Sanders said.
Trump vanquished his remaining Republican rivals about a month ago, a stunning achievement for the untested political candidate.
Advertisement
Here’s why: Trump previously agreed to debate Sanders for a $10 million gift to charity, and $20 million has already been raised, meaning that Trump maintaining his refusal to debate Sanders is in effect a theft of $20 million dollars from the very women’s health charities Trump says he wants to support.
