Hillary Clinton Within Striking Distance of Democratic Presidential Nomination
Clinton Within Striking Distance of Democratic Nomination
SACRAMENTO, California -- Hillary Clinton is now within striking distance of securing the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination -- and of making history as the first woman of either major party to do so.
Following the results from the Puerto Rico primary Sunday night, the Democratic frontrunner had 2,358 delegates -- including super-delegate -- at this hour, according to a count by ABC News -- putting her just 25 delegates shy of the 2,383 needed to become her party’s presumptive nominee.
Clinton added more than 30 delegates to her total after defeating her rival, Bernie Sanders, to win the island’s primary on Sunday.
Clinton is expected to officially clinch the nomination on Tuesday when voters go to the polls in California, New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico.
Her campaign hopes she'll hit the magic delegate number after polls close in New Jersey early in the evening. Clinton is in a tighter than expected race against Sanders in California, which represents the largest delegate prize on Tuesday. For his part, Sanders has vowed to fight on until the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this summer.
In the build up to Tuesday, Clinton has recently made a point of acknowledging the historic nature of her candidacy as she campaigns across the country.
"Starting next Tuesday, we’re on our way to breaking the highest and hardest glass ceiling," Clinton said at a rally in Culver City last week.
And during campaign event in Fresno on Saturday, she pointed to it while laying out her qualifications to be commander-in-chief.
"Now look," she said. "I know we’ve never done this before. We've never had a woman president."
Clinton will celebrate Tuesday's primaries in her home state of New York with a campaign event at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, not far from where her campaign is headquartered.
Her campaign sees this as a turning point night when she can officially turn her sites on unifying the Democratic party and on going after presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Tuesday also marks exactly eight years to the date from when Clinton dropped out of the primary race against then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008.
"Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time," she said during her concession remarks on June 7, 2008, "Thanks to you, it has about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before."
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