The former Secretary of State, New York senator and first lady reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee on Monday with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates. Those are party officials and officeholders, many of them eager to wrap up the primary amid preference polls showing her in a tightening race with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.Ms. Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an Associated Press count.
The AP surveyed all 714 superdelegates repeatedly in the past seven months, and only 95 remain publicly uncommitted.Mr. Sanders plans to make the case to superdelegates that he is better positioned to beat Trump in November. While superdelegates can change their minds, those counted in Ms. Clinton’s tally have unequivocally told the AP they will support her at the party’s summer convention. Since the start of the AP’s survey in late 2015, no superdelegates have switched from supporting Ms. Clinton to backing Mr. Sanders.“We really need to bring a close to this primary process and get on to defeating Donald Trump,” said Nancy Worley, a superdelegate who chairs Alabama’s Democratic Party and provided one of the last endorsements to put Ms. Clinton over the top.
Ms. Clinton had a muted reaction to her claim on the nomination Monday night as she campaigned in California. She told a cheering crowd she was on the brink of a “historic, unprecedented moment,” but said there was still work to be done in the six states to vote on Tuesday.“We’re going to fight hard for every single vote,” Ms. Clinton said at a rally in Long Beach.Ms. Clinton’s campaign had worried reaching the 2,383 delegate commitments could depress turnout in Tuesday’s elections and give Sanders an edge. Even a strong showing for Mr. 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.
Mr. Sanders made no mention of Ms. Clinton’s victory during a Monday evening rally in San Francisco. In a statement, his spokesman Michael Briggs said, “Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump.”Ms. Clinton outpaced Mr. Sanders in winning new superdelegate endorsements even after his string of primary and caucus wins in May. Following the results in Puerto Rico, it is no longer possible for Mr. Sanders to reach the 2,383 needed to win the nomination based on the remaining available pledged delegates and uncommitted superdelegates.
Indeed, Ms. Clinton’s victory is broadly decisive. She leads Mr. Sanders by more than 3 million cast votes, by 291 pledged delegates and by 523 superdelegates. She won 29 caucuses and primaries to his 21 victories.That’s a far bigger margin than Mr. Obama had in 2008, when he led Ms. Clinton by 131 pledged delegates and 105 superdelegates at the point he clinched the nomination.Echoing the sentiments of California Governor Jerry Brown, who overcame a decades-long rivalry with the Clinton family to endorse her last week, many superdelegates expressed a desire to close ranks around a nominee who could defeat Mr. Trump in November.
“It’s time to stand behind our presumptive candidate,” said Michael Brown, one of two superdelegates from the District of Columbia who came forward in the past week to back Ms. Clinton before the city’s June 14 primary. “We shouldn’t be acting like we are undecided when the people of America have spoken.”Though she marched into her second presidential primary campaign as an overwhelming favourite, Ms. Clinton could not shake Mr. Sanders until its final days. He campaigned aggressively in California ahead of the state’s Tuesday election, unwilling to exit a race Ms. Clinton stood on the cusp of winning.Beyond winning over millions of Mr. Sanders supporters who vow to remain loyal to the self-described democratic socialist, Ms. Clinton faces challenges as she turns toward November, including criticism of her decision to use a private email server run from her New York home while serving as secretary of state. Her deep unpopularity among Republicans has pushed many leery of Mr. Trump to nevertheless embrace his campaign.
“This to me is about saving the country and preventing a third progressive, liberal term, which is what a Clinton presidency would do,” House Speaker Paul Ryan told the AP last week after he finally endorsed Mr. Trump, weeks after the New Yorker clinched the GOP nomination.Yet Ms. Clinton showed no signs of limping into the general election as she approached the milestone, leaving Mr. Sanders behind and focusing on lacerating Mr. Trump. She said electing the billionaire businessman, who has spent months hitting her and her husband with bitingly personal attacks, would be a “historic mistake.”
“He is not just unprepared. He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” Ms. Clinton said last week in a speech that was striking in its forcefulness, previewing a brutal five-month general election campaign to come.Even without the nomination, Mr. Sanders can claim ideological victory. His liberal positions pushed the issue of income inequality into the spotlight and drove Ms. Clinton to the left on issues such as trade, Wall Street and campaign finance reform.But she prevailed, in part, by claiming much of the coalition that boosted Mr. Obama. She won overwhelming support from women and minorities, catapulting her to decisive victories in diverse, delegate-rich states such as New York and Texas.
When Ms. 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. Vice President Joe Biden, seen as her most threatening rival, opted not to run in October.Of the four opponents who did take her on, Mr. Sanders was the only one who emerged to provide a serious challenge. He caught fire among young voters and independents, his campaign gaining momentum from a narrow loss in Iowa in February and a commanding victory in New Hampshire. His ability to raise vast sums of money online gave him the resources to continue into the spring.
But Ms. Clinton vowed not to repeat the failings of her 2008 campaign and focused early on winning delegates, hiring help from Mr. Obama’s old team before launching her campaign. They pushed superdelegates into making early commitments and held campaign appearances in areas where they could win the most pledged delegates.She now moves on to face Mr. Trump, whose ascent to the top of the Republican Party few expected. The brash real estate mogul and reality TV star has long since turned his attention from primary foes to Ms. Clinton, debuting a nickname “Crooked Hillary” and arguing she belongs in jail for her email setup.
After a long primary campaign, Ms. Clinton said this past weekend in California she was ready to accept his challenge.“We’re judged by our words and our deeds, not our race, not our ethnicity, not our religion,” she said Saturday in Oxnard, California. “So it is time to judge Donald Trump by his words and his deeds. And I believe that his words and his deeds disqualify him from being president of the United States.”