96 years after women were given the right to vote in the United States, history was made when Hillary Clinton won not only New Jersey but also California giving her the majority of pledged delegates and the necessary number of super delegates to claim the party’s nomination.
The announcement didn’t sit well with Bernie Sander’s supporters who still argue that since super delegates don’t cast their votes until July, the media is incorrect in handing Clinton the victory so soon.
The maths, however, is not in Sanders favour. His strategy, as of now, is to work to flip super delegates from Clinton to himself. A strange strategy for someone who has argued that super delegates are undemocratic, and who himself would disavow such a strategy if Clinton was using it against him.
Clinton came out of Tuesday’s primaries with more than 3 million votes than Sanders and led to her historic moment of becoming the first women on a major party ticket to be nominated for president.
This moment was not lost on Clinton.
“I know we have never done this before. We’ve never have had a woman president,” she said Saturday night at a rally in Fresno, California. “That is why I want you to understand, that I have spent eight years in the Senate on the Armed Services Committee, four years as secretary of state. I have spent a lot of hours in the Situation Room working to solve some of the hardest problems we face. And I know how hard this job is and how much humility you need to have and how you should actually listen to people who have good ideas.”
She did congratulate Sanders for pushing the Democratic Party to discuss wage increases, healthcare, and other important topics, saying the debate he forced them to have made the party better and stronger.
Clinton’s messaging now will shift to trying to unify liberal voters behind her, welcoming Sanders supporters into the mix and even extending an olive branch to moderate Republicans who are put off by Donald Trump’s nomination by the Republican Party.
All eyes will be on Sanders for the next few weeks to see if he concedes the nomination to Clinton and if he will decide to rally behind and even campaign for Clinton’s election. A promise he made early on in the campaign.
Now with both parties moving forward with clear nominees, the infighting on both sides will come to an end and both Trump and Clinton will focus on explaining to voters how they are different and laying out their plans for the country.
