The biggest prize of the Democratic primary contest was awarded on Tuesday, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claiming victory in California and the majority of pledged delegates in all 50 states.
With 94 percent of the votes counted in the Golden State, Clinton was leading Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 56-43 percent. Combined with her victories in New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota on the night, Clinton’s pledged delegate count ballooned to 2,168.
She’s still shy of the 2,383 delegates, both pledged and superdelegates needed to clinch the nomination before the July Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. Major media outlets, however, have declared her the nominee based on anonymous surveys of superdelegates who will cast their vote at the convention.
That was good enough for the Clinton camp to declare the race over.
“It’s the first time in our nation’s history that a woman will be a major party’s nominee.” Clinton told supporters at a victory rally in Brooklyn. “Tonight’s victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible,” she added.
Though Sanders now has no chance of passing Clinton without enlisting the help of superdelegates, it wasn’t all lost for the democratic socialist insurgent on Tuesday. His campaign took some solace in winning North Dakota and Montana.
Speaking to supporters in California, Sanders pledged to stay in the race, despite reports that he intends to lay off a bulk of campaign staff in the coming days.
He also rebuffed pressure from the Clinton camp and the media who say he should drop out in order to help defeat the GOP’s presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
“We understand our mission is more than just beating Donald Trump, it is transforming our country,” Sanders said.
The campaign released a schedule of events showing that Sanders will hold rallies later this week in Washington, DC—the final primary contest on the schedule.
“We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, D.C., and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice to Philadelphia,” Sanders said.
“The struggle continues.”
