President Barack Obama is planning to endorse Hillary Clinton this week after the former Secretary of State seals the Democratic nomination, according to Bloomberg based on information from a person familiar with the matter.
Clinton is only 26 delegates short of reaching the required 2,383 delegates required to clinch the nomination after winning the caucus in the U.S. Virgin Islands and primary in Puerto Rico over the weekend.
The Democratic presidential frontrunner already accumulated 2,357 delegates including 1,810 pledged and 547 superdelegates based on CNN’s delegate count.
On Tuesday, seven states including California, New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota will have a Democratic primary,
Clinton expected to clinch the nomination on Tuesday
Political observers believe Clinton will achieve the needed delegates early Tuesday given her double-digit lead over Senator Bernie Sanders in Jersey. A CBS survey showed that 61% of Democratic voters support the former Secretary of State compared with 34% for Sanders. There are 126 pledge delegates up for grabs in New Jersey.
California offers the biggest electorate prize of 475 pledged delegates. California Governor Jerry Brown endorsed Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I have decided to cast my vote for Hillary Clinton because I believe this is the only path forward to win the presidency and stop the dangerous candidacy of Donald Trump” wrote Gov. Brown in an open letter to Democrats and Independents in California.
The Governor noted that Clinton’s lead against Sanders (more than 3 million more votes and hundreds more delegates) is “insurmountable,” which shows that “Democrats want her as their nominee.”
Last week, Pres. Obama said, “We’ll probably have a pretty good sense next week of who the nominee will end up being,” during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana hosted by PBS NewsHour.
Pres. Obama also stated that the Democratic Party has “better arguments” about the economy and the Republicans had “no coherent economic theory.” He plans to campaign actively for the Democratic nominee, according to his aides.
Clinton calls for Democratic Party unity
The Democratic presidential frontrunner called for unity within the Democratic Party on Monday. She told reporters in California that in 2008, she decided to support then Sen. Barack Obama after a bitter primary contest.
According to her, “I believed it was the right thing to do. No matter what differences we had in our long campaign, they paled in comparison to the differences we had with the Republicans, and that is actually even more true today.”
“Anyone who has supported me, anyone who has supported Senator Sanders has a lot at stake in this election in preventing Donald Trump from being our president,” added Clinton.
CBS News Director of Elections Anthony Salvanto noted that the latest shows that 71% of Democrats want Sanders to support Clinton after the primaries.
Salvanto said, “The prospect of facing Donald Trump is having some unifying effect, especially among Sanders voters, many of whom say they would back Hillary Clinton in November if she is the nominee.”
Sanders plans to keep fighting until the convention
Meanwhile, Sen. Sanders reiterated his position that he would make his case to encourage superdelegates (Party leaders, elected senators, House representatives and governors) to shift their support to him. Superdelegates are
“Our goal is to get as many delegates as we possibly can and to make the case to superdelegates that, I believe, the evidence is fairly strong that I am the strongest candidate,” said Sanders.
He recently stated, “The Democratic National Convention will be a contested convention.”
On the other hand, Clinton said, “After Tuesday I am going to do everything I can do to reach out and try to unify the Democratic Party and I expect Sanders to do the same.”
