Hillary Clinton was projected to clinch the Democratic nomination almost eight years to the day she abandoned her 2008 campaign against then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Technically, this doesn’t change Bernie Sanders’ plans. He was hoping to beat Clinton Tuesday night in California and ride that momentum into the Democratic National Convention, where he would try to persuade superdelegates to change their mind and make him the nominee instead.
In fact, the Sanders camp has been quite explicit that this changes nothing.
“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgement, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement. “Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination. She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then. 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.”
Briggs concluded by saying that “Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump.”
In practice, however, it’s going to be very difficult for Sanders to keep going to the convention. If Clinton does well in Tuesday’s voting or President Obama endorses her, it’s going to be nearly impossible.
Sanders will in effect be asking superdelegates to deny the nomination to the first potential female president despite a popular vote lead that will surely be greater than its current 3 million votes after tomorrow.
No wonder he bristled at a reporter’s question about whether this would be “sexist.”
Sanders does still have the zeal of his millions of voters, many of whom believe the whole process was rigged and can now include the AP calling the race for Hillary before any of Tuesday’s states, much less California, vote.
Now even if Sanders loses California, his supporters can blame the media for prematurely calling the race for Clinton.
How Clinton navigates that going forward will be challenging. But she has finally taken Sanders’ narrow path to the nomination and all but completely closed it off.
