LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic US presidential nomination, the Associated Press said on Monday, the day before six states were set to vote in nominating contests.
But the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, vowed to keep up the fight, saying it was wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually 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,” the campaign said in a statement. Superdelegates largely consist of party leaders and elected senators, members of Congress and governors.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico and a burst of last-minute support from superdelegates, the AP reported.
She would be the first woman nominated for president by a major US political party.
“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. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an AP count.