Hillary Clinton Is The Presumptive Democratic Nominee

Hillary Clinton is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after reaching the magic number of delegates, AP and NBC News report. Clinton reached 2,384 delegates following this weekend's win in the Puerto Rico primary, in which 60 delegates were at stake. Should everything go as planned, she will be the first woman to win the Presidential nomination of either major party. That total includes 572 superdelegates and 1,812 pledged delegates, both totals that beat Sanders 46 superdelegates and 1,520 total delegates. Clinton also leads the popular vote by three million votes, according to RealClearPolitics. For a full explanation of the difference between superdelegates and pledged delegates, click here. Clinton’s twitter team urged people to continue to head to the polls.

Sanders’ campaign has long said that superdelegates represent an unfair advantage for Clinton, contrary the will of the people. "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," Michael Briggs, Sanders campaign spokesman, said in a statement read on MSNBC. "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 before the first caucuses and primaries and long before any other candidate was in the race. Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump." So Sanders will attempt to enter the convention and secure the nomination by attempting to flip superdelegates, hoping they will contradict Clinton’s overwhelming lead in the popular vote and in pledged delegates. Clinton's campaign will hope that the news doesn't cause her voters to become complacent, stay home, and open the possibility that Sanders will close the gap in both the popular vote and pledged delegates.