The Associated Press reported that a win in Puerto Rico over the weekend and “a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates” was enough to push Clinton to the 2,383 mark-the number of delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.
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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. “They include more than 400 superdelegates who endorsed Secretary Clinton 10 months before the first caucuses and primaries and long before any other candidate was in the race”.
An Associated Press count of pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses and a survey of party insiders known as superdelegates shows Clinton with the overall support of the required 2,383 delegates.
“Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination”. “It’s time to stand behind our presumptive candidate”, Michael Brown, a superdelegate from the District of Columbia, told the AP. Even a strong showing for Sanders in California and elsewhere would likely still leave him well short in the delegate count, but it could give him more motivation to fight on to the Democratic convention in July. “Let’s assess where we are after tomorrow”. Asked whether an Obama endorsement of Clinton would affect his campaign, Sanders deflected, saying he was being asked to speculate before an important primary in California.
Earlier on Monday, Clinton called for party unity, suggesting it was time for Sanders, a USA senator from Vermont, to abandon his hard-fought challenge, as six states hold nominating contests on Tuesday when she expects to clinch the nomination. That was part strategy – they don’t want the vote to be suppressed – and part planning in that Clinton has an event in Brooklyn on Tuesday night where her campaign had hoped she would be able to react for the first time to the race being called. I don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about my discussions with the President.
That’s a reversal from her first presidential bid.
Throughout her surprisingly rocky primary campaign, Clinton has been cautious about emphasizing her trailblazer status. Decisive wins in Southern states on Super Tuesday and a sweep of March 15 contests gave her a significant delegate lead, which became insurmountable by the end of April after big victories in NY and in the Northeast.
Instead, Clinton reacted at Long Beach Community College. “We have to be unified going into and out of the convention to take on Donald Trump and to repudiate the kind of campaign he’s running”.
“We’re judged by our words and our deeds, not our race, not our ethnicity, not our religion”, she said Saturday in Oxnard, California.
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“I believed it was the right thing to do”.
