The Associated Press stole some of Hillary Clinton’s thunder last night when they announced that – after surveying superdelegates – she had won the overall support of the required 2,383 delegates to win the nomination. Here is the response from Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook:
This is an important milestone, but there are six states that are voting Tuesday, with millions of people heading to the polls, and Hillary Clinton is working to earn every vote. We look forward to Tuesday night, when Hillary Clinton will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates.
Here’s the math on that: As of this morning, Clinton has garnered 1,812 of the 4,051 available pledged delegates, leaving her 214 shy of the majority. She would only need 45% of California’s 475 pledged delegates (not to mention the remaining 219 available in the other 5 states holding primaries today) in order to get there. That will certainly happen sometime tonight.
Beyond that, it might be important for the Sanders campaign to notice that, rather than swinging in his direction, more and more of the superdelegates are lining up to support Clinton.
All of that is probably what prompted the 30-45 minute telephone conversation between President Obama and Bernie Sanders on Sunday. While we don’t know exactly what was discussed, it came amidst a lot of talk about the President’s preparation to endorse Clinton. It makes sense that would happen once she has crossed the threshold of reaching a majority of pledged delegates. At that point…the voters will have spoken.
