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By:
Reuters | |||||||||
| Posted:
Jun,08-2016 12:32:18
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A former senator and U.S. secretary of state, Clinton would be the first woman to ever be the presidential candidate of a major political party in the country's 239-year history. But the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, vowed to keep up the fight in what has been a protracted and increasingly antagonised primary race that has exposed deep rifts between the left--wing and the more centrist of the Democratic Party.
A Sanders campaign spokesman said it was wrong of the Associated Press and NBC News, which made the calls on Monday evening, to count the votes of superdelegates before they cast ballots at the Democratic National Convention in July. "Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump," Sanders' spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement, castigating what he called the media's "rush to judgment." While most delegates are awarded by popular votes in state--by-state elections, superdelegates largely consist of party leaders and elected senators, members of Congress and governors, and can change their mind at any time.
For that reason, the Democratic National Committee has echoed the Sanders campaign, saying the superdelegates should not be counted until they vote at the convention in Philadelphia. But that has not deterred the news media. The AP and NBC reported that Clinton reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, and a burst of additional support from superdelegates. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, has commanded huge crowds spilling out of parks and stadiums and has been particularly bolstered by younger voters angered by widening economic inequality with his promise of a "political revolution." But Clinton, who prefers smaller, round-table events, has continued to edge out Sanders, particularly among older voters with longer ties to the Democratic party. Her less lofty promises focus on improving the policies of her fellow Democrat and former boss, President Barack Obama. "According to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment," Clinton told a rally in Long Beach, California, shortly after the AP report. "But we still have work to do, don't we? We have six elections tomorrow and we're going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California." Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, and Sanders has 1,521. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an AP count, compared to 48 for Sanders. | |||||||||
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