The Bernie Sanders campaign has condemned the media's declaration of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee, insisting that superdelegates should not be automatically counted,
Politico reports.
AP put out a story on the eve of Tuesday's primaries, including in California, the state with the most number of delegates, that Clinton had already reached the 2,383 needed to secure nomination, including superdelegates who have declared their intention to vote for Clinton.
In reaction, Sanders campaign manager Michael Briggs
put out a statement:
"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.
"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 10 months 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."
AP insisted, however, that it has been in touch with the vast majority of superdelegates over a continuous period and that, so far, not a single one who originally said he was going to vote for Clinton has switched to Sanders, so the likelihood that enough would suddenly do so at the end is practically nil.
The story also emphasized that even among pledged delegates, not counting the superdelegates, it would be extremely improbable for Sanders to have any realistic shot in overcoming the 291 delegate lead that Clinton currently holds Clinton, however, was a bit more cautious than AP, tweeting that she was flattered by the story but that there were still primaries she was aiming to win.
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