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Sanders Still Won't Drop Out After Clinton Is Declared Democratic Nominee Twice Over

Hillary Clinton has more delegates and individual votes than Bernie Sanders, but the Vermont senator has vowed to take the fight to the Democratic Convention.
Photo by Julie Jacobson/AP

The media crowning of Hillary Clinton as presumptive Democratic nominee on Monday may not have been enough to convince her opponents that the early pronouncement (and superdelegates) were "real", but the results of Tuesday's half-dozen primaries, which padded Clinton's pledged delegate count by more than 300 delegates, are almost certainly not contestable.

Primary victories in New Jersey, South Dakota, New Mexico, and California, the biggest prize of the night, handed Clinton an estimated 325 more pledged delegates Tuesday night. She also won 8 pledged delegates in Montana's open primary and 7 in North Dakota's caucuses, despite losing those states to Bernie Sanders Tuesday. But if Clinton supporters thought the senator was going to stand down, they thought wrong.

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The senator has long vowed to take the fight right up to a contested primary, and after the primaries will press onto his next stop on the trail, which will be a rally held Thursday night in Washington DC. The district will hold its primary on June 14 — the last contest before the national convention in Philadelphia.

The campaign also sent an email to supporters Wednesday morning titled: "The struggle continues," even as The New York Times reported that the senator had plans to let at least half of his campaign staff go as early as Wednesday.

"Next Tuesday we continue the fight. We are going to fight hard to win the primary in Washington, DC and then we take our fight for social, economic, racial, and environmental justice to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania," Sanders said in the email. "I am pretty good at arithmetic, and I know that the fight in front of us is a very, very steep fight, but we will continue to fight for every vote and every delegate we can get."

Related: 'We Made History': Hillary Clinton Declares Victory

The results of last night appear to consolidate what has been true throughout this protracted primary process; that Sanders does better in caucusing and open primary states, where independents — some of the senators biggest adherents — can vote. But that didn't help him much last night since delegate-heavy California and New Jersey were primary states. Not all can be blamed on the primary system though, since Clinton also won South Dakota, where non-affiliated voters are also allowed to cast ballots.

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The final results have still not come through for California as of 10am Wednesday morning, but Clinton clearly won the state with 56-43 percent of the vote with 94 percent of precincts having turned results in.

Earlier on Monday night, Clinton opponents accused the Associated Press of unfairly jumping to premature conclusions when it named Clinton as the presumptive party nominee, declaring she had reached a delegate majority with a tally that included superdelegates. Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs vehemently objected, saying "it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates," since they couldn't cast a final vote until the Democratic National Convention in late July.

It is true that Clinton hasn't yet reached the 2,026 pledged delegate threshold needed to cement her nomination. She is still 215 delegates shy of that benchmark according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight, which does not include superdelegates.

But by that same measure, Sanders is 500 pledged delegates away from that goal. With only one state left in the primary race — Washington DC, which has a delegation comprised of more superdelegates (26) than pledged delegates (20) — Sanders cannot win enough of the popular vote or pledged delegates to close the gap. Which then turns to his stated goal of trying to flip superdelegates at the convention. Clinton currently has 571 compared with his 48.

While it is true that superdelegates can switch sides at any time leading up to and at the convention, few will do so unless the move is justifiable, i.e., if the other candidate is winning the majority of individual votes. Given Clinton's popular as well as delegate lead over Sanders — 13.5 million to 10.5 million respectively — that's unlikely to occur.

Related:Sanders Campaign Calls BS on Report That Clinton Has Sealed Democratic Nomination

So, on Tuesday night, Clinton was finally able to revel in her victory. After earlier thanking the AP for their premature assessment Monday, but largely demurring from assuming the mantle of nominee, Clinton declared in front of hundreds at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that her campaign had "made history" by becoming the first woman ever to lead a major US political party.

In her speech, Clinton also congratulated Sanders "for the extraordinary campaign he has run." She made the speech eight years to the day after she emotionally conceded to Barack Obama in which she had said she was unable to "shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling" after losing the 2008 nomination race. She probably should expect no such speech from Sanders until at least after July.