Hillary Clinton Makes History
June 8, 2016
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, speaks at a victory rally at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City on June 7, 2016.
Credit: © Krista Kennell, Shutterstock
Yesterday, primary and caucus voters in six states—including delegate-rich California—pushed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton well beyond the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States. Prior to those final state primaries (Washington, D.C., votes last, on June 14), Clinton had hit 2,383 delegates exactly, but 571 of those were superdelegates. As her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders, has often pointed out, superdelegates vote the way they want to, regardless of their home state’s choice, and they can potentially change their mind. On Tuesday, Clinton won the vote in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota (Sanders edged her out in Montana and North Dakota). The wins gave Clinton a commanding delegate lead of 2,755 to Sanders’s 1,852. In theory, a massive superdelegate switch could still bail out Sanders, but the odds of that happening are slim.
All the delegate counting and “politics” of the lengthy campaign nearly swallowed up one very important fact: Hillary Clinton will now become the first woman ever nominated by a major party for president of the United States. Clinton first entered the national political scene as first lady in the 1990’s. She then represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 2001 until 2009, when she became secretary of state, a position she held until 2013. And, of course, there was her presidential run in 2008, when she finished second to a skyrocketing Barack Obama. Clinton is no newcomer to the political stage, but that should not lessen the significance of her historic achievement. Her nomination will become official at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia at the end of next month.
With Sanders (mostly) in the rear-view mirror, Clinton now sets her sights squarely on her next opponent, the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump. The U.S. presidential election takes place on Tuesday, November 8.
