Bernie Sanders’ campaign on Monday evening condemned the media for its “rush to judgment” in declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic presidential nominee, saying superdelegates should not be automatically counted.
“It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, 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,” Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said.
The statement came after The Associated Press declared that Clinton had secured enough support to cross the threshold of 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Sanders has been adamant in recent days that he is ready to fight all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July, and that he will try to flip superdelegates to clinch the nomination.
However, the delegate math makes Sanders’ path to the nomination all but impossible.
Neither Clinton nor Sanders will likely be able to officially win the nomination without any superdelegate support, but Sanders faces a near-impossible task to overtake Clinton among pledged delegates.
He would need to win roughly two-thirds of the pledged delegates between Tuesday’s contests and next week’s primary in the District of Columbia — a massive jump from the roughly 46 percent of pledged delegates he’s won thus far — to pass Clinton.
Clinton expressed restraint on Monday night as she tries to rack up enough votes to secure symbolic victories on Tuesday night.
“We’re flattered, @AP, but we’ve got primaries to win. CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ, SD, vote tomorrow!” Clinton tweeted.
Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook also offered words of caution. “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,” Mook said in a statement.
And Briggs was adamant that the fight is not over.
“Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump,” he said in the statement.
