Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders preemptively assailed the media for headlines he predicted will be published after Hillary Clinton is declared the presumptive Democratic nominee next week, and argued that no candidate will have enough “real delegates” to truly clinch the nomination before the convention.
Speaking to a crowd at a rally in California on Tuesday, Sanders said that on the evening of June 7, Clinton will likely collect enough delegates to qualify for the nomination, the media will announce that the “nominating process is over.”
“That is factually incorrect,” Sanders told the audience. “That is just not factually correct, and I think that the Democratic National Committee will tell you that’s not factually correct.”
“The truth is, that unless I am very, very mistaken,” Sanders added, “no candidate … will have received the number of pledged delegates — i.e. the ‘real delegates’ that people vote for — neither candidate will have received the requisite number of pledged delegates that he or she needs to become the Democratic nominee.”
While Clinton will likely get enough total delegates going into the party’s convention in July to be crowned the nominee, Sanders is banking his hopes on convincing a number of Clinton’s superdelegates, of which she has hundreds, to join his side. According to the Associated Press’ latest tally, Clinton is only 71 delegates shy of the 2,383 needed to win.
But her total is supplemented by 543 superdelegates, unbound party officials, who could still flip and vote for Sanders at the convention. Sanders, meanwhile, is more than 800 total delegates short of 2,383.
Though nothing is certain, even Sanders seems convinced the former secretary of state will reach the 2,383 threshold after a number of states, including California and New Jersey, hold their primaries on Tuesday.
